Happiness
by ZoZo
Summary: Magneto embarks upon a search for happiness. What *will* he get up to?
1. It begins

Erik ran a hand through his thinning, white hair and let out a long sigh. Today had been long, one of the longest, most tiring, useless days of his life. He was getting too old for this whole Super-Villain thing. If that was what people thought he was- he didn't know and frankly, he didn't care.  
  
"Gambit," he called, massaging his temples as the smirking Cajun appeared. "Bring me a Whisky."  
  
"Sure t'ing, boss." Gambit swept a lock of hair out of his demonic eyes, still smirking. "Are we talking neat, on the rocks, soda? Malt, single malt, Tennessee, Scotch-"  
  
Erik merely blinked as the mutant before him continued to list all the possibilities for one small glass of Whisky, ticking them off on his long fingers as he went.  
  
"Just make it.." Erik searched for the right word, waving a nonplussed hand when it didn't come to him. "Make it alcoholic, Gambit."  
  
With that, the Cajun winked and strode out of the room. Erik scanned the room with his tired eyes, letting them rest on the.. colossal Colossus who was turning himself to metal and back again repeatedly out of boredom. Under the glare of the lights, he kept reflecting rays and beaming them back at Erik who soon sorted the problem by levitating the metal-man into a filing cabinet where he stuck like a very large fridge magnet.  
  
Pyro, who Erik had decided was actually insane, was content just to flick his lighter on and off, grinning like a madman every time the flame came up.  
  
And then there was Pietro, his own flesh and blood sitting in the corner and turning the pages of a World Atlas with far more interest than was required. In fact.. he seemed to be leering at it. Using his powers of fatherly intuition and the fact that Pietro was sixteen and bombarded with hormones, Erik had a good idea what magazine his son was hiding under the Atlas.  
  
This realisation was not met with a normal, fatherly reaction. One kind of father might have strode across the room and ripped the magazine from the culprit's hand telling him how filthy he was and then secretly sneaked a peek later. Another kind may have laughed, ruffled his hair and said something nauseating like "Attaboy!" But Erik felt absolutely nothing for his son and that was what made him different from other fathers.  
  
He had loved Pietro once, of course- before the boy's mother had died. There was no bitterness in him back in those days. Now he was so full of anger and resentment that there just wasn't any room for his son. He was simply indifferent.  
  
"Whisky, boss, just how you like it," Gambit called as he strutted into the room. "Alcoholic," he added, eyes flashing mischievously.  
  
"Thank you, Gambit," Erik told him, taking the glass and swallowing the amber liquid.  
  
"Can I have some of that whisky, boss?" Pyro asked hopefully. Erik looked from the alcohol in his hand to the lighter in Pyro's and deduced that letting him get his hands on a highly flammable liquid would not be the best of ideas.  
  
"No, no, leave me in peace, all you!" snapped Erik. He found that the drink and terrible day he had just experienced were making him very irritable. A nasty voice in the back of his mind reminded him that this was probably down to old age.  
  
Pyro, Colossus and Gambit left in quick succession but Pietro didn't move. He had put down his 'reading-material' now and was staring at his father defiantly.  
  
"You too, Pietro," Erik muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He really didn't want to cope with another of his son's tantrums.  
  
"I hate you!" the boy screamed as he walked across the room to the door.  
  
"Kindly go and hate me somewhere else, then," his father replied, closing his eyes in frustration.  
  
"You are not my father!" Pietro shouted before he sped off at super-speed, finally leaving his father in peace.  
  
Erik sighed again. Why was Pietro upset with him this time? Did he really care?  
  
No, he told himself, not really. Seeing that Gambit had thoughtfully left the bottle of whisky in his possession, he poured himself another glass and closed his eyes.  
  
Just when he was beginning to drift off, a voice reached him loud and clear. Defensively, he pushed his hands over his ears only to find that the voice was coming from elsewhere.  
  
Xavier.  
  
'You must try harder with the boy,' Xavier told him sternly. Erik hated it when Xavier decided to drop into his head like that for a chat. Especially when he didn't have his helmet at hand.  
  
'Charles, can't you let an old man sleep?'  
  
'You are not old, Erik. Pietro is your son, do nor cast him aside.'  
  
'Didn't you hear him, Charles? He just said I wasn't his father. So in my eyes, that means he is not my son.'  
  
'You care about him, Erik. I know you do.'  
  
'There is a time and a place for you to stick your nose in and this, Charles, is not it. I am simply trying to have a nice, relaxing drink on my own.'  
  
'Then you won't mind if I join you. I'll bring a good wine.' Erik sighed once more. As if today couldn't get any worse, now Charles had invited himself round for a drink.  
  
"Whatever next?" he growled angrily as Pyro crept in, swiftly picked up his lighter from the table and tiptoed out again.  
  
After another half-glass of whisky, the professor appeared and true to his word, he was holding a bottle of wine. Erik took it reluctantly and waved Charles in the vague direction of a seat.  
  
"It has been so long since we met as friends," Charles observed as he lightly prodded a house of cards Gambit had left on the table.  
  
"Friends, Charles?" Erik raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Yes, I think of you as my friend. That is why I am sorry to see you like this."  
  
"It'll wear off by the morning- I've only had a few anyway."  
  
"That is not what I meant and you know it." Charles looked piercingly into his friend's eyes. "You have changed, Erik. Why are you so keen on revenge?"  
  
"Why didn't you save yourself the time and just read my mind instead?" Erik was beginning to get very annoyed now. He folded his arms and set his jaw, looking the spitting image of his angry son.  
  
"Because I would rather you told me in person," Charles said simply. Erik gave a dry laugh.  
  
"What's this? You, Xavier, not interfering? Oh, give me strength!"  
  
"I sense a lot of anger, Erik."  
  
"Didn't need to be a telepath to do that, surely?"  
  
"Why don't you talk to me?"  
  
Erik stared into the glass of wine the professor had given him previously. He knew it would do him good to talk to somebody, but it was a bit too late to start doing what was good for him when he was pushing sixty.  
  
"Talk to me, Erik," Charles urged. There was a long silence in which Erik weighed up the pros and cons. They could hear Pietro having a heated rant in the background.  
  
"Yes," Erik finally said. "Yes, alright Charles. I am too tired to fight you and besides, we must do something to drown out my son's racket."  
  
"A wise decision." Xavier smiled. "Now, what has made you so bitter?"  
  
There was another dry laugh from Erik. "Where shall I start? The Holocaust? Losing my wife to Anti-Mutant scum? Having to have my daughter sectioned in case she ended up killing someone?"  
  
"There has been a lot of pain in your life," Charles said softly. Erik had the strongest urge to say "Duh," like his son would in these situations. "But you don't have to respond to it like this. You mustn't take it out on mankind."  
  
Perhaps Xavier had a point. Erik couldn't even remember the last time he'd felt happy. Certainly, he'd felt a twisted kind of joy when a human had died at his hands but it wasn't the same feeling- the feeling he had when he'd kissed his wife or held his newborn twins for the first time. He could see that he'd grown up to be what he once detested, a bitter and twisted old man with a grudge against the whole world.  
  
"You are right, Charles," Erik shook his head softly. "As usual. But you know what a stubborn creature I am. I can't- and I certainly won't change."  
  
Charles shook his own head now, his eyes looking sad.  
  
"I expected so much more from you, Erik. Your powers are so great. It is a pity you do not have the heart to match."  
  
Erik snorted at the lines the professor was throwing him now.  
  
"Let me sense your pain, friend," Charles said, wheeling himself over to a reluctant Erik. He outstretched his hands and lay them on Erik's warm forehead, closing his own eyes in concentration.  
  
The pain he felt was numb and throbbing, always there and yet deeply repressed. He saw snatches of images accompanied by burning rage. There wasn't a sign of happiness in this man's lonely mind.  
  
Erik watched as Xavier opened his eyes and stared at him, looking as if he understood. It was the kind of look Erik had been seeking for a while now. Acceptance. And yet what gave the professor the right to analyse him like this? It made him feel exposed and uncomfortable.  
  
"Have another glass of wine," he instructed Charles, willing him to move away.  
  
"I pity you, my friend," Xavier said softly as he gently stroked the bitter man's forehead. Loath as he was to admit it, the contact with another human was a huge comfort for Erik.  
  
They stayed like that for a few seconds in complete silence, staring into each other's eyes and trying to make out the other's intention. However, the silence was broken by another indignant cry from Pietro and the sound of something heavy being thrown against a wall.  
  
"Try and find that happiness, Erik," Charles said softly and gave him a meaningful look as he left.  
  
Erik mused on this instruction as he heard the rising voices of the other three mutants and the sound of a fight breaking out.  
  
"You little toerag!" screamed Pyro. "Give my fucking lighter back!"  
  
And just as Erik was planning on ignoring them, he heard the Cajun shouting hysterically that dear little Pietro had set his father's entire wardrobe on fire. 


	2. The dancing Russian and other peculiarit...

The next morning, Erik woke up feeling decidedly different. He felt younger, lighter somehow and almost sprang out of bed with a sprightly leap.  
  
He was even more disturbed to find that he whistled as he shaved and smiled at his reflection in the mirror. For Erik, being happy was a bad sign. The feeling was so unfamiliar to him that he suspected a fever for a while. Delirium, possibly. On finding that his temperature was perfectly normal, he toyed with the idea that he was going mad.  
  
But madness wasn't supposed to feel so nice, surely?.  
  
"The world is such a wonderful place!" he sang to himself, before realising with disgust what words he had just uttered. What was happening to him? It was surely some kind of mind control…  
  
Xavier!  
  
Had Erik not been feeling unusual that day, he would have been wreaking gruesome and painful revenge on the bald professor by now. The happiness flowing through him seemed to overcome any negative feelings, which was hard for him. He thrived on negative emotion, after all.  
  
With a noticeable spring in his step, he strode into the main room wondering what to do with his day. Somehow he just didn't feel like causing havoc amongst humans or kidnapping defenceless mutants. And.. what was this desire to have fun, of all things?  
  
The room was empty except for Pietro, who was doing a very good job of sulking. Erik was greeted with his son's usual "I wish you were dead," and a sullen glare.  
  
"Good morning, Pietro," his father replied pleasantly and made himself a cup of coffee. He couldn't even remember the last time he had done something for himself. It was probably for this reason that he ended up with a cup of murky, brown water rather than coffee.  
  
He watched his son from across the table with more interest than he could ever remember having in Pietro. The boy sat with his arms folded, swinging his legs and staring at the floor with disgust. Teenagers were absolutely fascinating creatures, he observed, wondering if he had ever been like that.  
  
'Ah,' a voice in his head told him. 'But Pietro has a reason to sulk.'  
  
Erik blinked. The voice was not Xavier's, but entirely his and all the more alien.  
  
He had insight now? What next, compassion?  
  
'You have treated him dreadfully. You ought to apologise.'  
  
Ah..  
  
Pietro noticed his father staring at him and gave him a one finger salute in response.  
  
"Can I help you?" he jeered, looking like he'd like nothing more than to rip his head off.  
  
"Pietro, I was going to ask you the same question," Erik replied. There. He was beginning to be a compassionate, insightful father. Really, being happy wasn't so bad at all. He wasn't frolicking yet, by any accounts.  
  
"What?"  
  
To Erik's surprise, his son's reply wasn't delivered with sarcasm or a smirk. Pietro looked genuinely shocked. It was then that Erik realised just how much he had neglected his som. He had turned little Pietro into a hateful, angsty deliquent by lack of a father figure. Was it too late to- he couldn't believe he was thinking this. He, Magneto, Did Not Feel Remorse.  
  
Only he wasn't Magneto, was he? He was Erik. Magneto was just a code name, but Erik was who he really was. In these past few years he had been taken over by Magneto, acting like the mutant he longed to be. But even then, he was still Erik Lehnsherr, and Erik was really quite a nice man underneath the helmet and cape.  
  
"I have been the most appalling father, Pietro," he said as his son formed a frown very similar to his.  
  
"Now you realise? Or is this another one of your schemes? You don't care about me at all! I hate you!" Pietro loved a drama. He was pushing his father, seeing how far he would go. It was incredibly irritating to see that he wasn't affected at all, watching him calmly with narrowed eyes.  
  
"You have every reason to hate me," Erik gravely nodded his head. "I hope you know that those actions were not mine, but Magneto's."  
  
Pietro blew a lock of hair out his eyes and pouted slightly.  
  
"Great, so now I have a schizo for a father."  
  
It annoyed him even more when Magneto/Erik laughed. Laughed! He was being deadly serious here, trying to hate his father and the man had the nerve to laugh like it was a joke!  
  
"Oh, Pietro," sighed Erik. "I only wish I could make this up to you."  
  
"Hmph." Pietro's pouted even more and began to swing on the back legs of his chair. He knew that doing things like that annoyed parents.  
  
"At least let me cheer you up," offered his father, before putting out a hand to steady his son's chair. "You can't really want to be a beacon for teenage angst."  
  
How wrong he was. Pietro would have liked nothing more than to be crowned Thane of Tantrums, Master of Mood Swings, Sir Pietro of the Sulk.  
  
Yes, Erik decided rather smugly. Fatherhood was not so hard to grasp. He could win Pietro round.. but how? What was the boy interested in, besides the latest issue of Playboy? He supposed that pornography was the best thing for father and son to bond over.  
  
"I vandered eef you vould be vanting a cup of coffee, Magneto?" asked Colossus, who stood at the door looking nervous.  
  
"Thank you, I have been having- I mean, I already have a cup, Colossus."  
  
"Sir, you must let me serve you in some vay! Say the vord and I veel do eet, as I have so sworrn to do!"  
  
Why had he never noticed what a dreadful suck-up Colossus was before? The metallic mutant seemed so desperate to please- almost in a creepy way. Still, Erik could understand his plight. He was desperate to please someone himself. His son, who wore an expression that looked like it ought to be accompanied Queen Victoria's famous quote, "We Are Not Amused."  
  
Just as Colossus was about to leave, he had a flash of inspiration. Maybe he couldn't bond with Pietro yet, but he could entertain him. After all.. Colossus was made of metal, wasn't he? And they didn't call him Magneto for nothing..  
  
"Colossus, there is something you can do. If you would return to your metallic state, please."  
  
Colossus turned himself to metal hesitantly. He hoped Magneto wasn't going to melt him or something. He'd been a faithful servant, hadn't he? What if his actions hadn't been satisfactory- he couldn't bear the idea of having displeased his master!  
  
Erik took one last look at Pietro's face. He was watching Colossus although looking extremely bored nonetheless.  
  
With a small wave of his hand, Erik contorted Colossus' grim face into a huge smile. The metallic mutant's eyes looked confused and terrified, making a bizarre contrast with the forced grin. Pietro yawned and continued to look unimpressed. Erik would have to try harder than that.  
  
He moved Colossus' jaw up and down, making his mouth open and close.  
  
"Polish me, Pietro!" he said in a poor imitation of the silver Acolyte's Russian accent.  
  
"I am having the rust and I am needing the oil!"  
  
Despite himself, Pietro couldn't keep himself from smiling at this. He desperately tried to hide his amusement with another yawn but found that he grinned instead. This was bad, he would not let his father win!  
  
Now Erik was beginning to enjoy being thoroughly silly. He used his powers to create a large pair of breasts in place of the Russian mutant's pectorial muscles.  
  
"You're sick, man, sick," muttered Pietro but his frown unwillingly twisted itself into a smile and a small laugh escaped him. It was so unfair- he didn't want Magneto thinking he actually liked him. He some nerve trying to be funny after all he'd put him through as it was.  
  
And yet.. Colossus. With boobies!  
  
An Australian outburst of expletives told them that Pyro had just witnessed his friend's new look. Gambit stood at the door, openly ogling Colossus' magnificent chest.  
  
"Why, Mr LeBeau I feel violated!" Erik said in his best girly voice while he opened and closed his poor victim's mouth. Pietro gave in to his stubborn nature and laughed raucously with Pyro as their team-mate blushed and muttered in French. OK, so his dad was funny. Big deal, he didn't like him any more for it.  
  
"I do apologise for this, my friend," Erik said as he began to levitate a large amount of drawing pins towards Colossus where they stuck to his metal coat, making him look a very scared, giant hedgehog.  
  
He was treated to a round of applause from Gambit and Pyro and a tiny half smile from his son.  
  
"Make him dance!" Pyro cried, having quite forgotten about the lighter in his hand.  
  
"As you wish."  
  
Erik manipulated poor Colossus' hand so that one finger pointed upwards and then brought the arm up, down, up, down much like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.  
  
"More!" cried Gambit, secretly wondering what metallic breasts would feel like to the touch. He was rewarded with a series of pelvic thrusts from their fellow Acolyte and then an impressive Russian Cossack dance.  
  
As he made the poor mutant dance for his audience, Erik took another look at Pietro. He looked amused by the spectacle if not a little disturbed. Erik couldn't remember the last time he saw his son smile and likewise, Pietro couldn't remember ever seeing his father smile.  
  
Running out of silly things to do with Colossus, Erik attracted a selection of cultery on to his metal coat. He then placed a colander on the mutant's head and formed the selection of knives and forks into a risqué bikini.  
  
"Make him sing, make him sing!" screeched Pyro, who had absent-mindedly set fire to Gambit's hair.  
  
So Erik treated them to a selection of Karaoke hits. Poor Colossus grooved, boogied and shimmied through some of the most appalling songs he had heard in his sorry life. It didn't help that they were delivered by Magneto, whose rendition of I Will Survive made the title seem very doubtful.  
  
After a short tap dance from the Russian Acolyte, Erik decided his work was done. He had humiliated himself and the metallic mutant enough. Colossus turned himself back to flesh and fled from the room looking close to tears, Erik making a mental note to make it up to him later.  
  
Gambit noticed that his hair was on fire and shrieked in a somewhat feminine manner, running for the bathroom.  
  
Pyro looked longingly at the flames in Gambit's hair and kissed the lighter in his hand, going off to his bedroom to spend some time alone with his beautiful fire.  
  
Pietro just sat and watched his father, no longer knowing what to say. Old Magneto had changed, that was certain. Why the change of heart all of a sudden? He made a half-hearted attempt at sulking when his father looked his way but couldn't keep it up.  
  
"Your powers are so cool!" he blurted out, hating himself for saying something positive to his dad. He couldn't just forgive him like that, could he? He was supposed to bear a grudge towards him for as long as they both lived, not feel proud to have Magneto as a father!  
  
"Did that break the ice, my son?" Erik asked, savouring the words "my son". Yes, it was shamelessly sentimental. Nauseating, really. But how else could he show Pietro he was sorry and cared about him?  
  
If he wasn't careful he was going to start sprouting angel wings.  
  
Bloody, bloody Xavier!  
  
For once, Pietro was stuck for words. He really wanted Magneto to make hating him easier. Why did he have to use the "s"-word, the one that he knew would make any remaining ice melt? He sounded so sincere using those words- perhaps- maybe he did care.  
  
Feeling like a character in a dreadfully sugary sitcom, Erik then did what he thought he would never do again. He brought his son into an embrace, even pausing to ruffle his son's hair affectionately.  
  
This happiness thing- it wasn't so bad. He felt the years of hatred and bitterness wash away as a new emotion stirred in him. Pride! Fatherly pride and.. oh yes, this was it- the big one. Love.  
  
The moment was eventually spoilt by the Cajun's screams of disgust.  
  
"Look, you piece of shit! A bald patch! I gon' kill you- gimme that lighter an' I show you where to put it, mon ami!"  
  
A high-pitched yell from Pyro told the newly reunited father and son that he had done just that. 


	3. Home again, home again

Now Erik had experienced a little happiness, he hungered for more. How much better his life could have been if he hadn't wasted years in a Pietroesque sulk! He could have happily kissed Xavier at that moment for the new lease of life he had been given but he suspected doing such a thing might send dear Charles into cardiac arrest.  
  
After he had made his peace with Pietro, Erik made up his mind to apologise to Colossus. Apologise… When was the last time he had done that?  
  
As he waited for Gambit (now complete with red spotted bandana to hide his scorched hair) he tried rolling the word 'sorry' off his tongue.  
  
"Thorry," he said on his first attempt, spraying a large amount of saliva into the air. Not one to give up easily, to tried again.  
  
"Th… th… ths… s…. ssss… ssssoo.."  
  
Had it really been so long since he said those words that he had quite forgotten how to say them?  
  
"Sssooo.. ss, ss… ssssoooorrr.. eeee… sorry," his eyes lit up and he tried it again.  
  
"Sorry!" he cried, punching the air with a triumphant fist. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"  
  
"So'm'I," drawled the Cajun at the door, who now resembled a pirate. "Gambit leave you alone for a little while, he come back and find you gone insane."  
  
Erik grinned, in the eyes of Gambit confirming that he was indeed a lunatic.  
  
"Did you get it?" he asked and the Cajun handed him an envelope in reply.  
  
"Oh, marvellous!" Erik said as he put the envelope carefully into his pocket and headed for the metallic one's sleeping quarters.  
  
"You startin' to scare me, boss," muttered Gambit as he opened the latest issue of 'Tits 'n' Claws' to the centrefold.  
  
Erik knocked carefully on Colossus' door.  
  
"Colossus," he called. "It's Magneto."  
  
"Boss!" the Russian replied, scrambling to the door and falling instantly to his knees.  
  
"How may I serve you, boss? Are you vanting to control me again? Am I getting the punishment?" Erik's insides squirmed as he saw that Colossus lit up at the thought of a punishment.  
  
"No, Colossus, on the contrary." Erik smiled at the grovelling mutant and motioned for him to take a seat.  
  
"Something in me has changed, Piotr. I have seen the error of my ways. Where I once wanted to destroy this world we live in, I now only want to make it a better place. That is why, Piotr, I have come to this decision."  
  
"Vat decision?" asked the worried looking Russian. "Vat can I do forr you you, Magneto? There is not a thing in this world I would not do forr you!"  
  
"Then you will take this," Erik said and handed him the envelope. Colossus clutched it, afraid to know what was inside.  
  
"Open it."  
  
Piotr's thick fingers slowly tore open the envelope and he tentatively took out the rectangular piece of paper inside. Slowly, his eyes skimmed over it and then widened in disbelief.  
  
"You are sending me back to Russia? Have I failed you, Magneto?"  
  
"No, no," Erik waved the ludicrous suggestion away. As he remembered, Colossus had never done anything but obey. That was part of the problem and the one of the reasons that it was time for the metallic Acolyte to fly the nest.  
  
"I have been your most loyal servant!" cried the Russian, his voice rising in volume. Erik watched him carefully, hoping he wasn't going to start hyperventilating.  
  
"I am nothing vithout you!" wailed Colossus and started speaking in Russian at a very high speed. Erik saw with some discomfort that the metal-man was crying, resembling an overgrown and hairy baby.  
  
"Pull yourself together, Piotr," Erik said firmly. "Your life is not here. You are not happy here. As your master, I demand you to leave and be happy. If you disobey me, then indeed, you will not be my most loyal servant."  
  
Piotr mulled this over and made a small, squeaking noise in response,  
  
"You have family in Russia, yes?" Erik asked, watching Piotr's face soften at the word 'family'.  
  
"Yes," nodded Colossus and pulled a photograph out from under his pillow, handing it to Erik.  
  
"You must want to see them again," said Erik, feeling rather saintly again. "I have only just realised the importance of family, Piotr. Do not neglect them like I did- there is no pain greater than regret."  
  
He smiled smugly at his words of wisdom, thinking he could give old Baldylocks Xavier a run for his money.  
  
"But," Colossus appeared to be having as huge eternal struggle. "Vat vill happen to you?"  
  
"I'll get by, my friend. Now I demand you take that ticket and get on that plane. It is your last order."  
  
Piotr nodded. If it was an order, then he had to follow it. And it would be so nice to see Dmitri and Vasily and his little Varia again..  
  
"Yes, sir!" he cried, bringing a sturdy hand to his forehead in salute. To his surprise, Erik bowed back to him majestically and swept out of the room.  
  
Erik sank into his chair contentedly. Doing good deeds was about a thousand times as rewarding as causing evil everywhere in his wake. It felt good to let go of the sycophantic Colossus, but even better to know that his actions were making the former Acolyte happy.  
  
Their happiness, he realised, was his happiness as he watched his three other Acolytes with a fond smile.  
  
Gambit was staring at pictures of female mutants on Magneto's files. The costumes always seemed to cling in just the right places on their perfect bodies. Some wore little more than a leotard- he had a particular favourite that chose to wear only a few strips of PVC, a mask and those spiked, thigh- high boots he always dreamt about..  
  
Pietro was boredly stirring something that the Cajun had set up a while ago on the hob. He was accompanied by Pyro, who had misplaced his lighter and seemed to content to switch the gas on and off as he watched the blue flames flicker.  
  
"I vill be leaving now," said Colossus who had entered the room a while ago and been instantly shocked by the lightness of the atmosphere. So shocked that he had stood there for at least a minute with his mouth open before being told by an amused Erik that he might catch flies like that.  
  
"You've packed already?" Erik asked, shocked.  
  
"Vell I vas being helped by Master Pietro," admitted Piotr shyly, fiddling with the label on his suitcase.  
  
Pietro? Helping? Erik got the feeling that he wasn't the only one who had changed.  
  
"Wait," Gambit looked up from a picture of Lady Deathstrike, one of his personal favourites. "Where Colossus goin', boss?"  
  
Pyro merely continued to croon something that sounded suspiciously like Waltzing Matilda into the flames.  
  
"I have dismissed Colossus from the Acolytes and he is returning home. The rest of you are welcome to leave too, if you'd like."  
  
At this news, Pyro stirred from his trance. Both he and Gambit were completely taken aback. Colossus had been the perfect Acolyte and Magneto was getting rid of him! What exactly were the intentions of their Master?  
  
Pietro thought carefully about leaving for a few seconds. That was all he needed, given his unhuman speed. What might take an ordinary human being days to decide took him only minutes.  
  
A part of him wanted to leave so that he could go back to the Brotherhood who were his best and only friends, except they hadn't really parted on friendly terms and were probably burning effigies of him at that moment. He had a change of heart about his father since Magneto's Big Transformation. For once, Erik was acting like a proper father and for once, he felt tired of playing the angst-ridden, world-weary son.  
  
The three of them shook their heads and said that they were happy to stay. Pietro wanted to spend more time with his father before the effect of his whatever Magneto was taking wore off. Gambit and Pyro simply wanted to see what their boss would do for them if Colossus' gift had been so great.  
  
"Then we will all go to the airport to see off our friend," Erik decided and led the group into one of his travelling spheres.  
  
It was not a far distance to the airport, but with Gambit's continous complaints that the sphere made him feel sick it seemed much longer. By the time their Cajun friend had tired of moaning feverishly and wiping his hand across his moist brow they were just inches off the ground and came to a jarring halt. Colossus hung on to his suitcase to prevent the embarrassment of it bursting open when dropped, revealing what he thought of as very personal items.  
  
Whilst Colossus went through the monotonous business of checking in, the three Acolytes discussed their boss who was engaged in avid discussion with a young boy carrying an action figure.  
  
"Look like your old man's losing his mind," drawled Gambit who was circling for prey of the female kind.  
  
Pietro was inclined to agree, but not without a fight.  
  
"People change, you know," he tried valiantly as his fellow mutants fell into a fit of rowdy laughter.  
  
"What, you think he's up to something?" the speed demon asked nervously, watching his father examining the action figure as if it were an antique out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"No, mate," Pyro quipped as he set a piece of plastic on fire, inhaling the toxic fumes lovingly. "He's just gone mental! Mental! Barmy, nuts, crazy, loony, mental!"  
  
Both Gambit and Pietro were about to comment on the fact that the pyromaniax had just given a perfectly apt description of himself when Colossus returned, looking considerably happier. He had even traded his normal shirt with a garish Hawaiian one which they could only presume he saved for special occasions.  
  
"I vill be getting on my plane now and I must be saying my goodbyes."  
  
He leant down to shake Pyro's hand only to inhale a large amount of noxious fumes from the burning plastic. He coughed wildly and decided to just settle on a smile and a curt "farewell" for the headcase of the group.  
  
Both Gambit and Pietro were civilised in their goodbyes. Unknown to him until he got on the plane, Gambit had stuffed a racy magazine in his back pocket across which he had scrawled 'For light reading. Subscription form at the back!'  
  
And then, finally he approached Erik who took him completely aback by giving him one of those manly hugs that would usually be seen between a sports coach and their star player. He also received a firm pat on the shoulder and a wink.  
  
In a way, he was glad to be leaving Magneto behind. This transition from Evil Overlord to Serial Do-Gooder, the kind who gave bear-hugs at that was just too hard to take in for him.  
  
With a final goodbye to his mutant brothers and his beloved boss, he went to board the aeroplane that would take him back home.  
  
"One down," whispered Gambit to his fellow team-mates.  
  
Erik was completely unaware of this remark. He was feeling a great sense of pride of what he had done, a swelling in his chest. He knew that Piotr would have a wonderful life now and how the dear Russian deserved it! As they watched the plane break into the clouds and disappear, he felt his paternal side shining through. He wished Piotr all the best, a safe and happy life completely devoid of the troubles he had encountered at all.  
  
Erik led the three back to the sphere, still looking at the sky with the kind of smile that would leave his face aching afterwards.  
  
Happiness really was better than any drug. And to see that you alone could make someone else feel like that was the most amazing tonic.  
  
Erik blinked through a curtain of blurriness, unfamiliar with the feeling. Cataracts, perhaps? At his age it was more than likely.  
  
Or was it..? It couldn't be.  
  
Erik Lehnsherr suspected very strongly that he had just found a tear of pride in his eye. 


	4. Of love and music

Erik was really beginning to master the art of happiness. Now that he had bridged the gap between himself and Pietro and sent Colossus away, he yearned to do more good deeds.  
  
There was a rather urgent matter that needed to be addressed. He had never noticed before that Pyro was a little mentally unstable, having been in a similar state himself. Now that his eyes had been opened, however, he realised that the Aussie had a less than healthy obsession with fire. Pyro was very rarely seen without his lighter or some other source of flame and did not seem to have heeded the age-old advice given to every youngster that is "Don't Play With Fire Or You'll Get Burnt".  
  
It was not really Pyro getting burnt that was among Erik's chief concerns, but he did fear for the hideout. More often than not, the fire lover would absent-mindedly leave a match burning on one of Master's prized Persian rugs. He was often caught surreptitiously putting a flame to a new material, just to see how it burnt. This had not been so bad until Erik woke one morning to find that his underwear draw consisted of nothing but ashes.  
  
He also feared that Pyro was a bad influence on young Pietro. Had the boy not, in the midst of his father-hating teenage-angst burnt all his clothes after all?  
  
It would be sensible to mention at this point that Erik, now having no clothes or underwear, was not walking around naked but had borrowed a few things from his absentee Sabretooth's wardrobe.  
  
But above all reasons to sort out Pyro's fire obsession was the fact that everybody had become slightly scared of him. Since half his hair had been burnt off in an unfortunate accident courtesy of Pyro, Gambit had been keeping his distance. Now that his hair had gone, when Pyro flicked his lighter the Cajun's hands went protectively to his crotch instead.  
  
Pietro had gone through the emotional torment of watching the Antipodean pyromaniac flick his lighter on and off repeatedly to the Doors' classic 'Light My Fire', sometimes crooning into the flame like it were a microphone. Although he had laughed about it later with his father, the memory still plagued him at night.  
  
"Dat man need a hobby," Gambit had remarked as he flicked through Triple Breasted Women, a bead of sweat gathering on his brow.  
  
A hobby was most certainly what Pyro needed. Erik began a search in the local papers for anything to take the mad mutant's mind off such a dangerously destructive element.  
  
Flower Arranging seemed a little too feminine and might possibly insult the mutant's manhood. Basket Weaving had been a prime choice until Erik realised that baskets were rather. flammable.  
  
And there was no way in hell that Pyro would go to ballet classes without a fight.  
  
Erik was just giving up hope, reclining with a gin and tonic when he heard a loud clatter from the Cajun's room. This was not unusual. What Gambit did alone in his room was never questioned. However, what was strange was the stream of French expletives that followed as Gambit entered the room brandishing something large and brassy.  
  
"Dis t'ing just fallen on my head!" he shouted indignantly.  
  
"Oh dear," Erik murmured tenderly, using the tone he'd heard parents use on television when their children had got- what was it?- a 'Boo Boo'. He was rather hoping he wouldn't have to kiss it better like the nauseating parents often did.  
  
Then, he caught sight of Gambit's instrument of torture. And indeed, it was an instrument, a trombone nonetheless. Quite where the trombone had come from or why it had fallen on the Cajun's head was a mystery.  
  
"Gambit, could I see that trombone?" The Acolyte rubbed his sore head and passed it to his boss, more pleased to get rid of it than anything.  
  
Erik inspected the trombone and put it to his lips. He hadn't the faintest how to operate the instrument, but found that the loud, blaring note that followed was quite pleasing. Yes, this little instrument could keep him quite busy.  
  
And if it could keep him, malevolent manipulator of metals amused then why not somebody else? Why not-  
  
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked the Cajun, who very much hoped that he wasn't for he had been engrossed in a daydream about himself, that Lady Deathstrike and a large pot of marmalade until then.  
  
Before Gambit could even think of replying, Erik was on the phone, calling every music tutor listed in the yellow pages.  
  
*  
  
Later that day, when Pyro was presented with the trombone, he immediately wondered how hot a fire would have to be to melt it. He'd heard that brass- or was it copper?- burnt with a green flame. Yes, he'd seen a lot of flames in his life but none of them had been green!  
  
Little did he know that whilst he was dreaming of verdant blazes, Gambit had successfully removed the beloved lighter from his back pocket. Erik had been reluctant to let the lusty Cajun go anywhere near the mutant's posterior, but was relieved to see that Gambit gave only the tiniest of gropes.  
  
Then, Pyro was sent to his first trombone lesson. Admittedly, he had been fooled into thinking he was going to a welding shop with the instrument where he would finally be allowed to use a blowtorch. This was simply because unless the prospect of fire was included, the Aussie would not be interested and the whole scheme would fail or indeed, go up in flames.  
  
Whilst Pyro was gone, Gambit, Erik and Pietro searched the hideout for matches, lighters, flamethrowers and the like. They had managed to find a secret stash of matches in Pyro's wardrobe containing no less than sixty boxes. The pyromaniac had hidden nineteen extra lighters around the place and left a rather foolish note on the fridge reminding himself to buy a blowtorch.  
  
They awaited the moment of the mutant's return, knowing that it could go either way. It was mainly for this reason that Pietro stood armed with a fire extinguisher and Gambit a bucket of sand, just in case.  
  
However, they needn't have worried. The magic of Erik's happiness had worked miracles again, which was plain for all to see when Pyro returned home with a relatively less manic grin on his face that almost pass for normal. When asked if he liked it, he replied that it was better than any stupid welding could have been. Which, considering that welding included a blowtorch, the object of his fervent desires; could only have been a good omen.  
  
The fire worshipper had nor even noticed that his lighter was missing, so in awe was he of the trombone.  
  
"Look what I can do, mate," Pyro gloated as he burst into a wholly tuneless yet not unenthusiastic rendition of 'Oh When The Saints Go Marching In' for the hundredth time.  
  
Erik rather feared he had created a monster.  
  
*  
  
So, with Pyro's fire obsession cured, though it was debatable whether the Aussie was any more sane, Erik turned his attentions to the insatiable Gambit. There was no doubt about it, the Cajun was a pervert extraordinaire. His favourite activity was looking at women. Fat women, thin women, triple breasted- he wasn't picky.  
  
Erik also knew that Gambit had a gigantic collection of pornographic material. He suspected that this was why his son had become so close to the Cajun. Unlike Pietro, however, Gambit made no attempt to hide the fact that he was gawking at naked women. If he was watching Lesbian Spank Inferno and somebody else entered the room, he would not blush and change the channel but invite them to sit down as he gave a helpful running commentary.  
  
It was blindingly obvious that Gambit needed somebody in his life. It would stop him from spending such long amounts of time in the bathroom at any accounts. Deep down, Erik suspected that Gambit might be quite a romantic and love was what he needed. He couldn't let the Cajun live the rest of his life lusting after centrefolds and paused pictures on the television screen- it just wasn't healthy.  
  
If he could get Gambit a real woman.  
  
Erik's heart skipped a beat. He could. Of course he could- he had done greater things these past few days than he had in decades. All it would take was a little scrap of paper, some thoughtful words and the help of the underground mutant newspaper 'X'.  
  
As Erik put pen to paper, he thought carefully about Gambit's best qualities.  
  
Did auburn or russet hair sound more attractive? Sculpted, muscular or toned? What colour best described those eyes- crimson? Dare he even think about mentioning Gambit's hobbies?  
  
'CAJUN CHARMER, 23,' he wrote, having no idea how old the Cajun Charmer actually was. He was rather proud of the alliteration in Cajun Charmer, thinking it sounded exciting.  
  
'SEEKS LADY TO SWEEP OFF HER FEET. LIVING IN NY. LONG, AUBURN HAIR AND DEVILISH EYES. TALL, FIT AND TONED. FUNNY, CHARMING AND ROMANTIC. APPRECIATES THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE,' wrote Erik, for want of a better way to phrase 'worships the female anatomy'.  
  
'ENJOYS FINE ART AND CINEMA.' Well, he spent a lot of time looking at pictures. And yes, there was a genre of cinema he particularly enjoyed.  
  
'REQUESTS LADY WITH GOOD SENSE OF FUN WHO ENJOYS TO BE ACTIVE,' Erik thought that was a more delicate way of putting 'must be sexually obsessed'.  
  
'FANCY A RENDEZVOUS?' Erik smiled triumphantly. That French word was the icing on the cake. Gambit sounded utterly irresistible from his careful wording.  
  
He scrawled in the details of where he expected hopeful masses of females would reply to, scribbled an address on the back and with a knowing smile sent Pietro to the post box.  
  
*  
  
The hopeful masses of young females did not let Erik down. At eight o' clock precisely on Monday morning, a neat stack of envelopes appeared in the letter box. Erik and his panel of judges, who coincidentally happened to be Pyro and Pietro, spent the rest of the morning reviewing candidates locked up in the training room.  
  
Pyro thought he had found a winner with a certain girl who had left not a name but a question mark. He thought the element of mystery was rather erotic. However, the lady had written very little about herself and at the end of her letter she had written 'NO TOUCHING'. And of course, Gambit wasn't the type to keep his hands to himself.  
  
Erik's favourite had class, charm and wit but she was a few decades too old for Gambit. In fact, she was really much nearer Erik's age and seemed to suit his tastes a lot more than the Cajun's. Erik was so taken with her that he fought valiantly for her case, until realising that he didn't want Gambit to have her so much as he wanted her himself.  
  
Pietro had found a girl in her mid-twenties who described herself as fun- loving and very, very active. She had also claimed that she was sexy, which they all thought was an added bonus. She had even been so kind as to include a picture, which Pietro stared at for three minutes flat with his mouth open before showing it to the panel. It was firmly agreed that she was jaw-droppingly gorgeous and sounded like a good match for the Cajun Charmer.  
  
Some of the letters weren't quite so promising. Erik had found a particularly suspicious letter which gave an accurate description of his friend Mystique. Pietro had found a hideously mis-spelt postcard with sexual content that would make even Gambit, Professor of Pornography, blush. There were several advertisements for whores and bizarrely, a request from a housewife for Gambit to come and unplug her drain (no innuendo intended).  
  
In the end, they decided upon Pietro's beautiful choice. Erik scrawled a short message asking her to meet at a bar downtown and that was that.  
  
Love was in the air for the Ragin' Cajun, and he didn't even know it.  
  
*  
  
Within a few weeks, Pyro had mastered 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and Gambit was getting on famously with the beautiful Belinda. So famously, in fact, that the Cajun walked around with a sickening smile on his face and was often known to step out in the middle of the night to steal flowers from people's very graves, just for his Lindy.  
  
Pyro had rarely touched a flame in days. It did seem that his obsession had been transferred to the trombone, but at least the musical instrument was not life-threateningly dangerous when careful precautions such as ear plugs were taken.  
  
And as far as Erik knew, Gambit hadn't looked at a single naked woman apart from Belinda since meeting her. This did mean that young Pietro had access to his entire collection, but Erik was not prepared to come between his son and his raging hormones.  
  
The change that had come over the Acolytes was astonishing. Everything looked and felt better, and there was not a person in that hideout without a smile.  
  
And the biggest smile, of course, belonged to Mr Erik Lehnsherr, miracle worker. 


	5. A lovely new addition

Erik had been engaged in a most pleasant dream involving champagne and poppy fields when the thunderous sound of the door being ripped off its hinges brought him back to reality.  
  
Now, any other person may be slightly alarmed to hear such a noise. They might pick up a baseball bat or a rifle, or creep to the basement and call the police. It would be sensible to cower in fear at such a moment. However, Erik, as boss of the Acolytes was used to the hideout being demolished on a regular basis. It simply meant that the fourth member, Sabretooth was home.  
  
It did not appear that Sabretooth had ever been educated about intercoms or security codes. Neither did he seem to know what the silver key hanging around his neck was for, for his preferred method of entry to the hideout was by either crashing through the wall on his bike or ripping the door off.  
  
Sabretooth was what Erik thought of as rather impulsive. At least once a month the talonned one would take a deep breath, nostrils aquiver and jump on to his bike, disappearing for anything from a few nights to several months. Those who had been present at Sabretooth's moments of impulse heard him utter a name before leaving, always the same.  
  
"Logan.."  
  
Erik knew little of Sabretooth and the beclawed X-Man's history, but it became accepted between himself and Xavier that the pair intended to hunt each other down and fight to the death. Secretly, Erik thought it was all rather petty. It did become so tedious to have that Wolverine arrive at the hideout wearing that murderous smile. Not to mention the fact that he frequently had to have the doors repair due to nasty scratches.  
  
Pulling on his crimson silk dressing gown, Erik stumbled sleepily into the main room. There, indeed, was Sabretooth, sporting a spectacular scar down the side of his face.  
  
"Good morning, Sabretooth," Erik said cheerfully, moving over to the kettle to make himself a cup of coffee. He was beginning to master it now and had been told that the pitiful brown substance was starting to taste like actual coffee rather than thick mud.  
  
The hairy mutant stared at his master, taken aback. Since when did Magneto say 'good morning'? When did master start making his own coffee? And why the hell did Ole Boss-Man not throw his usual tantrum at the sight of the latest breakage?  
  
"There have been some changes of late," the boss smiled and to Sabretooth's horror, started to sing something that sounded suspiciously like a showtune.  
  
"Did you have a nice trip?" Erik stopped singing and continued to scare the fourth Acolyte by taking what appeared to be interest in his sorry life.  
  
"Hell yeah!" Sabretooth growled, scratching a long fingernail into the mahoghany table.  
  
"How is Wolverine?"  
  
Sabretooth blinked. His mouth fell open in shock, revealing two gleaming fangs and a missing front tooth. Magneto was enquiring about the health of an X-Man? Not just any X-Man, but that stupid, pointy-haired, claw-wielding twit of a mutant.  
  
Or was he? The long haired mutant shook himself and realised that of course, the evil boss wanted an account of Wolverine's torture!  
  
"Let's just say there won't be any Logan juniors." Sabretooth gave a menacing little grin. "Damn, he squealed like a girl, boss! I had 'im by the throat, right-" At this point, the mutant stood up to re-enact his battle.  
  
"I got my knee, boss, like this- brought it up and BAM! Oh yeah, right in the-"  
  
Far from being amused, Erik was actually rather horrified. Being a male, he sympathised with anyone who had been attacked in such a very sensitive area. In fact, he found himself wincing at Sabretooth's coarse re- enactment, particularly when the mutant raised his voice to a glass- shattering octave and burst into theatrical fits of sobbing.  
  
"Yeah," Sabretooth puffed his chest out proudly. "It was just like that. And don't you worry boss, I beat 'im good, too. Even with those healing powers he'll be hurting for a few days. Just a shame I didn't finish him off, really, but maybe next time I'll bring an axe, and-"  
  
As the mutant continued to spill his violent desires, Erik's thoughts turned to his four new and improved recruits. Surely there was something he could do to stop Sabretooth from being so.. aggressive. It was just a question of how to go about 'softening' the rival of Wolverine.  
  
Before, the solutions had been more simple. Pietro needed his father, Colossus needed his home, Pyro needed a hobby and Gambit needed the company of someone other than his right hand. Sabretooth, on the other hand, appeared to need the X-Man's blood and in order to improve his recruit, Erik would have to rapidly change the mutant's desires.  
  
"Hey, look," Sabretooth waved a talon in front of Erik's face, awakening him from his deep thought. "I still got some of his blood under my nail."  
  
And, to Erik's disgust, he proceeded to run his tongue under the nail and sigh as if he had tasted the nectar of the gods.  
  
*  
  
It had been four days since the return of Sabretooth, and Erik still hadn't come up with a way to tone him down.  
  
The situation was becoming more desperate. It looked like the hairy beast of a mutant might be preparing for another hunt, judging by the way he threatened an absent Wolverine under his breath. A while ago, Erik would have been thrilled that his recruit was so hungry for the blood of the X- Man, but since his transformation he had somewhere come to the conclusion that Killing Was Bad.  
  
He feared he'd been a little late to the party on that one.  
  
"Alright, Maggie?"  
  
Erik looked up from the blank page on which he had meant to fill with scribbled plans to see a jovial Pyro, complete with trombone. He flinched inwardly at the self-proclaimed musician's new choice of nickname. 'Maggie' was really a touch too feminine for him.  
  
"Hello, Maestro."  
  
The Aussie glowed with pride at the boss' nickname for him.  
  
"Have you seen old Kitty-Kat around, boss?"  
  
Sometimes, it was hard to decipher all of Pyro's nicknames. Erik deduced that the mutant in question was Sabretooth; judging by his claws, furry coat and tendency to spray the furniture on a full moon.  
  
Though he was loath to admit it, Erik often thought of Sabretooth as the Acolytes' pet.  
  
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a bell rang. A pet! A kitty-kat! He could get the unruly Acolyte a pet of his own and Sabretooth might learn to love and cherish the creatures of the Earth. Then again, he might turn the poor thing into Shish Kebab, but it was a risk Erik was prepared to take.  
  
Now decided, Erik leapt out of his chair and called for Pietro. The boy was there in a flash and he and Pyro were told the latest master plan.  
  
Erik was a little deflated to find that they laughed. Alright, so the plan was a touch far-fetched. Did the speed demon or the trombonist have a better idea?  
  
They shook their heads and the three of them left for the pet shop, just as Sabretooth was filing his nails into deadly points and cackling in a quite unmanly fashion.  
  
*  
  
Like it had been for Gambit's girlfriend, it was a very tough choice. They had stayed in the pet shop for three hours debating the 'uncuteness' of three kittens.  
  
It was agreed that Sabretooth's kitten could not be too cute, too fluffy or too pretty. If it were any of these, then it would probably be an insult to the mutant's manhood.  
  
Pyro had stuck very firmly to this brief and chosen a fat, male kitten with one eye and a squashed face. He felt rather sorry for it because it was so ugly and didn't see how Sabretooth would think that it was a 'pansy-cat'.  
  
Pietro fought the case for a very sleek, white cat with blue eyes that he rather liked to think looked like a feline version of himself. World War Three had almost broken out when Pyro called the kitten in question a poofter and Pietro took the insult a little too personally.  
  
Erik liked the look of a very small tabby. When he reached out a finger to stroke it, it had bitten his hand. A sure sign that the little furball and the considerably larger furball would get along, in his opinion.  
  
Strangely, they had ended up purchasing Pyro's deformed creature. Nobody was really sure why, not even Pyro himself. The ugly beast shrieked all the way home, bashing its thick skull against its box in desperation to escape.  
  
"Well, this can go either way," Erik warned as they entered the hideout through the unfixed door. Erik had tried in vain to magnetise it back on using his powers and it now hung rather feebly, occasionally wobbling ominously.  
  
"Oi, Claws!" called Pyro on noticing Sabretooth's absence.  
  
"Logan?" came a sadistic whisper in reply. The brutal mutant's face fell when he realised that no, his bait was not near. Damn. No blood tonight.  
  
"What's in the box?" he asked sullenly, on a last hope that it might be Wolverine's entrails.  
  
"A present. For you," his boss replied. He eyed the three of them suspiciously as they grinned like demented Cheshire Cats, waiting for him to look in the box.  
  
As some psychoanalysts would have you believe, Sabretooth was really little more than a child at heart. And at the mention of a present, his heart secretly leapt. His hand reached out greedily for the box, just as his head reminded him that he was Big Bad Sabretooth and Big Bad Sabretooth didn't need anything from anyone.  
  
Luckily, it was Little Curious Sabretooth who acted instead. He opened the box carefully in deathly silence. Erik could hardly bear to watch the mutant's reaction as he spotted the large ball of fur sitting at the bottom and Pietro actually closed his eyes to block out a possible kitten bludgeoning.  
  
For a second, Sabretooth was confused. The 'present' looked like something he might cough up after a heavy night's grooming. He prodded it with a long, bony finger and when it moved, realised that whatever it was, it was alive.  
  
It turned to look at him with one, mournful green eye. Somewhere in his heart, the hairy mutant felt a strange twinge. The thing mewed sadly and before he knew what he was doing, Sabretooth reached out a hand and stroked the creature.  
  
After that, he quite forgot where he was and what he was supposed to act like and picked the kitten up. It was the ugliest, most adorable thing he'd ever seen.  
  
Erik, Pietro and Pyro looked on in shock. The reaction was good, no, far better than they had ever imagined. It looked like Sabretooth was already falling in love with the hideous cat, his softer side shining through for all to see as he cradled the creature and cooed at it.  
  
"What're you going to call it?" Pietro asked a few moments later, still completely taken aback by the gigantic change in the man.  
  
"Nothin' too cute," Sabretooth replied. Pietro breathed a sigh of relief. At least the man still had some testosterone. "Maybe Dolly."  
  
Or maybe he didn't.  
  
Sabretooth didn't see Pyro shove a fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing or hear Pietro say that the cat was, in fact, a boy and that Dolly was not a very suitable name. He was far too engrossed in his little Dolly- Wolly, not that that made him a pansy or anything.  
  
He'd train her up to kill Logan! Death by kitten- it could happen. Then again, suppose she got hurt? No, he couldn't risk his precious Dolly's life like that. And come to think of it, he didn't really want to kill Logan. Killing was bad.  
  
He shook himself, wondering if he had really just thought such a dreadful thing. Or was it dreadful? Wasn't it a good thing? Weren't kittens so sweet, and wasn't the world so lovely?  
  
The hairy mutant was left alone in his revoltingly fluffy frame of mind, the gruesome little cat sleeping in the palm of his hand.  
  
*  
  
Just a week later, Sabretooth was completely unrecognisable. He had become a kind, considerate and sensitive soul who thought the world of his cat. There had been no utterings of the name Logan and no sudden disappearances since Dolly arrived. Erik congratulated himself for another reformed recruit, allowing himself extra room to gloat on hearing Sabretooth actually say the word 'pookie'- not that he'd ever admit it.  
  
On Sunday morning, just as Erik was boiling the kettle, three familiar claws poked through the door. In a vain attempt to save the poor door, Erik opened it, making the owner of the claws very confused.  
  
"Hello," Erik said brightly to the murderous Wolverine. "Have you come to see Dolly?"  
  
"Dolly?" Wolverine's brows knotted together in further confusion. "That what he's calling himself these days?"  
  
Then, in true Wolverine style, he barged past Erik with a flash of adamantium claw and proceeded to sniff out his prey.  
  
He found Sabretooth in the hideout's one comfortable chair. He noticed something in the long talonned hand, but chose to ignore it. He wanted blood.  
  
"Sabretooth," he growled, enjoying the threatening swishing sound as his claws came out.  
  
There was no reply from the mutant in question, who was staring down at the thing in his hand with a very strange expression on his face. Not one to ignored, Wolverine cleared his throat loudly.  
  
"Sabretooth," he growled again, in his best 'I'm-Going-To Kill-You-Just-Try- And- Stop-Me-Bub' voice.  
  
"Oh," Sabretooth replied pleasantly. "Logan. Have you met Dolly?"  
  
Predictably, Wolverine growled.  
  
"Who the hell is Dolly?"  
  
He was repulsed and terrified to find that a fond, loving kind of smile crossed his sworn enemy's face.  
  
"Sssh," Sabretooth whispered. "She's sleeping."  
  
He pointed to his outstretched hand, and Wolverine realised that it held a small, furry something. Possibly a kitten, but too ugly to tell.  
  
"What the hell is wrong with you, Creed?"  
  
"Isn't she adorable?"  
  
The claws retracted, as Wolverine stared at his rival in disgust.  
  
"Is this some kind of game, bub?"  
  
Sabretooth gave another of his horrifyingly uncharacteristic smiles and to further shock his enemy, seemed to squeal. It was completely understandable that this memory disturbed Wolverine for a long time after.  
  
"Oooh, a game! Dolly loves to play, don't you? Yes! Yes she does. Look, if you swish your finger around like this then she'll chase it and-"  
  
With that, the years of hatred and blood thirst seemed to wash away in front of their eyes as the talonned one and the beclawed one bonded over a transsexual, one-eyed kitten.  
  
It was only a few minutes later that fellow X-Man, Cyclops turned up with a heroic blast through the door to save the day only to find the fierce, hostile Wolverine sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Acolyte hideout and giggling as he tickled the stomach of his arch enemy's kitten.  
  
Understandably, the bemused Cyclops left without another word. 


	6. Slush, slush and more slush

The following few days were rather quiet for Erik. Gambit and Pyro had been sent off to see the Brotherhood; leaving only himself, Pietro, Sabretooth and Dolly at home.  
  
After his massive success with Sabretooth, Erik had been hungry to commit yet another good deed. He decided to set up a family reunion for Rogue, Kurt and Mystique which he heard from the blue femme fatale went very well. She had told him with tears in her yellowy eyes how Kurt was beginning to call her 'Mutti' and that she and Rogue were going shoe shopping together next week.  
  
Mystique was also beginning to dress differently, more like a mother as such. Gone was the skin-tight PVC, much to the slight dismay of Gambit. She now wore gingham dresses and cardigans, as well as a locket with a picture of her children inside. Pyro had reported that Mystique was also acting differently towards the Brotherhood, turning up at six o' clock every evening to cook them a good, nourishing meal. Though he was somewhat sceptical of this, he had even heard that Mystique tucked the frog boy in every night.  
  
Erik had just been settling down with the morning paper when Gambit and Pyro entered through a hole in the door courtesy of Cyclops.  
  
"How are the Brotherhood?" he asked as Gambit struggled to drag his leg through the hole. Pietro, who had been pretending to watch MTV in the corner of the room felt his ears prick up.  
  
Pyro ignored the question and headed straight for his trombone. Gambit, on the other hand took a beer from the fridge and launched himself heavily on to the sofa.  
  
"Doin' good," the Cajun replied. "Keepin' outta trouble. Been trainin' 'em up good like you asked."  
  
"Hmm," Erik said thoughtfully, scratching his chin and sounding much like a fictional psychotherapist.  
  
"Place is a dump, boss. Slime everywhere and everyt'ing falling apart.."  
  
"Yes," his boss nodded understandingly. "And how is the, ah, voodoo situation?"  
  
Gambit looked up from his beer and let out a long sigh.  
  
"Not too good, Mags. Dey stopped burnin' de effigies but I t'ink dey got little Pietro dolls to stick pins in now."  
  
Pietro was not surprised to hear this. It would certainly explain the odd prickling sensation and sudden bouts of horrific of pain he had been experiencing of late.  
  
"Ah," Erik said, making Gambit wonder if he could only speak in monosyllables now. He looked at his son, currently white as a sheet and trying to control a violent spasm in his leg and decided that something had to be done.  
  
"Gambit, if you would go and fetch Mr Alvers. I believe he is the current leader of the Brotherhood?"  
  
The Cajun nodded and took a longing look at his beer. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to force the angry, young rock-tumbler to visit the home of his nemesis. He hoped that the hideout was seismic wave- proof or at the very least, that Magneto and son wore hard hats when addressing Lance.  
  
Gambit disappeared through the hole and Erik turned to his son. Pietro was looking a good deal more healthy now and seemed to have quite forgotten his previous trauma.  
  
"Lance is gonna kill you," he said matter of factly, as if he was telling Erik that they were out of milk.  
  
"Well, yes, he might," Erik replied using the same Mr Understanding tone he had applied to Gambit. "Except that I am not going to talk to him, Pietro."  
  
Pietro stared at him disbelievingly. Who else was going to talk to him? Dolly the kitten?  
  
"You are," his father told him, answering his question. Pietro's eyes went wide.  
  
"No way! They're already trying to kill me, imagine-what-they'll-do-to-me- in-the-flesh! Lance-is-a-madman-he'll-bring-a-club-and-beat-me-to-death-and- then-serve-me-for-lunch-to-Blob-in-a-sandwich-with-lettuce-and-mayo-and-ugh- I-hate-mayo!"  
  
Erik simply blinked. Deciphering hyper Pietro-speak was extremely difficult. From what he could work out, the boy was voicing an extreme dislike for mayonnaise and club sandwiches.  
  
"Pietro, you will be fine. Trust me, he will listen to you. Tell him how you and I have changed and make a sincere apology. I will handle the rest."  
  
"The rest?" Pietro raised an eyebrow but Erik made his smug I-Have-A-Bloody- Great-Scheme-But-I'm-Not-Letting-On! face.  
  
"What if he doesn't listen and tries to kill me all the same?"  
  
Erik was about to answer when a familiar chestnut mullet appeared through the hole, followed by the frustrated teen's body. With slightly nervous smiles, Erik and Gambit left the two boys alone to either make their peace or kill each other.  
  
"What?" Lance threw his ex-best friend an insolent glare. Erik watched the stairs and marvelled at the boy's perfect pre-reformed Pietro impression.  
  
"I- well-" Pietro's sentence was cut short when he suddenly fell face flat on to the floor, clutching his stomach. Lance cackled triumphantly.  
  
"Sweet!" cried the sadistic rock-tumbler. "Those voodoo dolls, they were my idea. Dude, we have been waiting to see if they worked for ages!" Having inherited a great amount of dignity, Pietro brushed himself off and told Lance that yes, indeed, the dolls were a magnificent creation.  
  
"You suck," Lance muttered, disappointed that Pietro was not either mortally wounded or offended.  
  
"Yeah, I do. I did something really stupid and I'm sorry. But- me and Magneto, we're not evil any more. I'm serious, dude," he added, gesturing around the room flamboyantly with one hand. "Look around."  
  
Lance had to admit, things were rather different. For one thing, Sabretooth was crouched in the corner grooming a small, fluffy kitten and for another, he could hear Magneto singing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' in the background to trombone accompaniment.  
  
"So what, Speedy? You're still a traitor." The rock-tumbler's reply was only half-hearted. Very few people knew that beneath the boy's hard exterior there beat a heart softer than finest cashmere.  
  
"Yeah. A big, fat traitor. And I'm sorry, Lance."  
  
"Make that a three-inches-shorter-than-me, skinny-assed traitor." Despite himself, Lance found himself grinning at the speed demon.  
  
Erik watched the boys' method of making up with fascination. First, Lance shoved Pietro in the chest. Then Pietro punched Lance lightly in the arm. Lance responded by pulling the boy into a headlock, which Pietro wrestled himself out of and cuffed his adversary around the back of the head. Then, most unusually, the boys threw their arms around each other in a tight, brotherly embrace.  
  
Feeling that his work was done, Erik re-entered the room. Lance cleared his throat loudly and almost dropped his friend, who quickly adjusted himself. The pair of them ran their hands through their hair self-consciously and moved so that they were standing a good metre apart.  
  
"What are you staring at?" they asked in perfect unison.  
  
*  
  
The next day, Erik called a meeting around the hideout's huge aluminium table. His committee consisted of those whose lives he had recently touched. Pietro and Pyro had come without guests, but Gambit insisted upon bringing his girlfriend, Belinda and Sabretooth had brought his new found friend, Wolverine. Mystique, Kurt and Rogue had also turned up, though the young X-Men looked dubious to say the least.  
  
Erik did not mind having extra company at all- in fact, it would help him greatly with his next plan. He revealed it to the committee somewhat theatrically, often stopping to bask in his own glory. He really was a genius! Someone ought to give a Nobel prize one day! "An issue of great importance has come to my attention," he said, looking down at his people regally.  
  
"Gambit, Pyro, Pietro, Mystique and our dear Rogue have all experienced it first hand. I am, of course," he added, noting Kurt's extremely confused expression, "talking about the Brotherhood house."  
  
The five people whom he had addressed flinched, wrinkled their noses and frowned at the very thought of the broken-down hellhole.  
  
"These poor mutants are living in squalor. They do not have the money to pay bills and struggle just to have running water and electricity."  
  
Erik shook his head sadly. Rogue was reminded of an advert for charity and half expected the metal manipulator to start telling them how just two dollars a month could make all the difference.  
  
"Yes, it's awful," Mystique tutted, using her handkerchief to rub some dirt off her son's nose. "Those dreadful conditions make them ill. Freddie's only just getting over a cold and now he's caught another."  
  
"Mutti!" Kurt muttered through clenched teeth as she continued to rub his nose. "Get off! You're embarrassing me!"  
  
"Something must be done about the Brotherhood house," Erik continued, desperately trying not to grasp the lapels of his jacket like a zealous politician. "That is why, my friends, I summon you here today."  
  
He was greeted by a strange mix of faces. Wolverine was predictably scowling incredulously. Mystique was nodding fervently, wanting a better future for her dear mutants. Gambit and Belinda wore identical sickening smiles and only seemed able to concentrate on each other and Pyro's eyes wore a faraway look as he fingered the cold metal of his trombone under the table.  
  
"Tomorrow, together, I ask you to restore the house. Everything must be fixed, redecorated and made as good as new. I know it can be done in a day, for I have seen miracles before my very eyes these past few weeks."  
  
He watched as the committee's eyes lit up and they began to talk excitedly amongst themselves.  
  
"I was made for DIY," Wolverine grinned with a flash of his claws.  
  
"I know just the colour scheme!" cried Kurt who fancied himself as a bit of an artist.  
  
"It's gonna be the best house ever!" Rogue said, raising one fist enthusiastically into the air whilst she comforted an overwhelmed Mystique with the other arm.  
  
Pietro simply looked at his father with interest.  
  
"What will you be doing all that time?"  
  
"Ah," Erik gave a conspiratorial grin. "I'll take the Brotherhood out for a day. Can you imagine the looks on their faces when they come home and see their new house?"  
  
"A surprise!" squealed Mystique and the committee broke out into delighted whispers.  
  
"Where are you gonna take them?" Pietro asked. He couldn't see his old friends willingly 'hanging out' with a man pushing sixty.  
  
"Well," Erik scratched his head thoughtfully. Where did one take a group of teenage mutant deliquents on a day trip?  
  
"Wait," Pietro grinned with a look identical to his father's I-Have-A- Cunning-Plan face. Erik had never been more proud.  
  
"I know exactly the place!"  
  
He proceeded to tell his father his idea, who could not help but feel a little doubtful about it all.  
  
"Are you sure, Pietro?"  
  
The boy nodded animatedly and turned to watch Wolverine, who was feverishly sketching out a plan on the flipchart .  
  
Erik smiled at the enthusiasm of his new team as Pietro, Rogue and Kurt desperately fought the case for a swimming pool. Happiness, it seemed, was incredibly infectious.  
  
And that was why tomorrow, he would be taking the Brotherhood on a lovely trip to the zoo. 


	7. Maggie's taking us to the zoo tomorrow!

As his team of eager mutants debated the benefits of carpet, Erik crept out to make a phone call to the Brotherhood house. He hoped very much that they had not had their phone disconnected as he didn't particularly fancy making a visit and coming face to face with the perpetually irate Wanda.  
  
He knew that somewhere along the line he'd have to make it up to Wanda like he had to Pietro, but he suspected that it would take more than a cabaret singing metallic mutant to break the ice. Whereas Pietro had always voiced his hatred for his father, Wanda preferred to express it through potentially life-threatening eruptions of power.  
  
Using his rapidly expanding powers of insight, he presumed that his daughter would not be coming to the zoo tomorrow. As he dialled the number, he imagined all the possible scenarios if she did choose to come, his favourite being himself somehow ending up in the tiger enclosure smothered in barbecue sauce.  
  
"Hello?" the uncertain voice of Lance Alvers rang out from the receiver. "Hello? Listen, you goddamn pervert, if you call here again I'll rip off your-"  
  
"Hello, Lance," Erik interrupted as the boy ranted on.  
  
"- and I'll wear them as earrings- Magneto?"  
  
"Yes. Lance, I have a little proposition to make. Pietro has told you that I've seen the errors of my ways?"  
  
Lance nodded, before realising that gestures normally went unnoticed in telephone calls.  
  
"Er, yeah," he said.  
  
"Then perhaps you would allow me to treat you and the rest of the Brotherhood to a day trip tomorrow?"  
  
Lance blinked in response, then noting the silence of the line realised that verbal communication was probably more accurate.  
  
"Er, yeah," he repeated, not really sure that a day trip with Magneto was the best idea after all. "Where?"  
  
"Pietro said something about a zoo," Erik said thoughtfully, a faint tinge of amusement in his voice.  
  
" A zoo?" Even with his best efforts, Lance could not control the childish excitement in his voice. "Sweet! Er," he added, remembering that he was Avalanche, The Cool One. "Yeah. That's cool, y'know?"  
  
So, after giving the 'terminally cool' boy the details of their expedition, Erik hung up the phone with a small intuition that tomorrow was going to be very, very interesting.  
  
*  
  
True to his word, Erik arrived at the Brotherhood house at seven thirty the next morning to find Lance, his amphibian friend and the appropriately named Blob dressed and ready for their trip. It did not surprise him that Wanda had refused to even consider his offer but he was secretly thankful. He had, after all, forgotten to watch that program on how to survive a rhinoceros attack last night.  
  
It was staggering how accepting the three boys were of their old enemy. Erik himself would have been slightly wary if mankind's most powerful mutant had piled him into his travel sphere and claimed to be taking him to the zoo of all places, but the boys from the 'Hood seemed more than happy to follow him.  
  
The journey to the zoo was reasonably long, and made even longer by the Toad's persistent singing. The boy's rendition of 'Jingle Bells, Batman Smells' continued for at least fifteen minutes, during which Lance was in danger of grinding his teeth down to the gums.  
  
"Shut up, Todd!" he finally exploded. The truth was, the song embarrassed him. It was immeasurably childish and so very passé. He did not want to appear anything but sophisticated in front of Magneto.  
  
"That song is so childish. God!"  
  
Far from being impressed by the rock-tumbler's maturity, Erik flashed the Toad a smile and proceeded to teach him the slightly more risqué verses.  
  
For the rest of the journey, the sphere rang with the melancholy lament of Uncle Billy's willy and Auntie Ruby's boobies; all lost on that fateful motorway.  
  
*  
  
Meanwhile, work at the Brotherhood house was underway. Sabretooth, Wolverine, Gambit and Pyro had chosen to do the big repairing jobs whilst Belinda, Mystique, Kurt, Rogue and Pietro had their hearts set on making the place look like a palace.  
  
Even with a team of nine, it was unlikely that they could have finished the hugely demanding task of making the house fit for human habitation had it not been for the speed demon. They had found him to be extremely efficient and when left to run through the house with a paintbrush in hand, he could coat the walls of the entire building in precisely four minutes and fifty two seconds.  
  
Pyro currently lay under the sink, tapping out a rhythm on the piping with a spanner. Nearby, Wolverine was assembling flat-pack furniture in a foul temper. It turned out that the instructions were all in some form of Scandinavian, and come to think of it, so was the description of what the item of furniture was supposed to be. As far as he knew, he was assembling a Fukty Vlørgon with the aid of a Schnöpperfussen.  
  
Sabretooth and Gambit were installing two new bathrooms. They had gone through such terrible ordeals removing the old toilet that neither wished to speak of it.  
  
As Kurt and Rogue hammered nails into a Bubeln-Grögge (they had decided that this was a shelving unit), their mother watched fretfully whilst painting the skirting boards. It was all too easy for one of her precious brood to injure themselves- hammers were hard and heavy and nails were sharp and pointy. Her ears were pricked up for the slightest cry of pain.  
  
Belinda was assigned the task of welcoming the carpet fitters and making cups of tea for them. As they worked, she hung the decidedly unfeminine curtains after giving the windows a rigorous scrub.  
  
Just like Erik, they were beginning to miracles unfold before their very eyes.  
  
*  
  
Any fears that the Brotherhood boys would not think much of their trip to the zoo had immediately been laid aside when they arrived. Erik had never seen faces light up in wonder quite like theirs and could have easily wept at how amazed they were to see 'real' animals.  
  
He was now able to see that, much like himself, the boys had missed out on childhood. Today was a chance for all of them to release their inner children, and that is precisely what they did.  
  
They ate sugary, sticky treats until no more could be consumed. Todd, being the youngest both mentally and physically, ate ice cream until he was copiously sick and then progressed to eat more.  
  
When they passed a balloon seller, Erik purchased a balloon for each of them including himself. Lance, all efforts at being cool now dissolved by excitement, brandished his red balloon with pride, making smug faces at any children which had not been lucky enough to get one themselves.  
  
They made faces at the monkeys and taught the parrots to say every rude word in the English language. It was strange enough to see an ageing man, a young punk, a hygienically challenged boy with a rather unhuman gait and an unbelievably vast teen together as it was, but the fact that they were all holding balloons and singing anthems better left to the playground made it an altogether more terrifying experience.  
  
*  
  
"Vic, can you pass me that Slagg?" Wolverine growled as he was met with Sabretooth's blank glare.  
  
"Yeah, you've gotta turn the Frütt three times with a Nippi and then, um, hit it with a Slagg. No. Put a Slagg into it. No.."  
  
Sabretooth sighed and took the instructions from the clawed one's hand, turning the piece of paper over silently and giving the other mutant a pointed look.  
  
"Oh," was all the crestfallen Wolverine could reply. There, printed on the back of the bizarre Scandinavian instructions, was an English translation.  
  
*  
  
Erik picked happily at his candy floss, listening to Lance's tales of the Brotherhood. He had never known that Fred was a budding poet before, or that Pietro and Lance had once lost a bet to the X-Men and had to spend a week in women's clothes. Apparently, Pietro had made such a convincing lady that he became known around the neighbourhood as Petunia.  
  
They had lost the other two boys a while ago, but were not overly concerned. Todd has a good sense of direction and it was more than likely that Fred was to be found watching the sea lions with whom he felt something of an affinity.  
  
After he had grown bored of talking about his friends, Lance turned the conversation to Erik's massive change of heart. At first he had suspected that the super villain was Up To Something, but now fully believed that people could change for the better.  
  
Erik told him all about his encounter with Xavier and how alien happiness had been to him at first. He gave lively accounts of how each life had been changed, finding himself and Lance rocking with hysterical laughter at the thought of Colossus with metallic mammaries. He described the swelling of pride in his chest with every act of benevolence and found tears forming in his eyes. And had those tears not been threatening to fall already, Lance's next statement would certainly have done the trick.  
  
"I don't want to be a vandal anymore!" the rock-tumbler proclaimed grandly. "No more graffiti or petty crime for me. I want.. I want to be good, like you. I want to make people happy!"  
  
Erik simply held his arms open, thinking it a little too dramatic to say 'Come into the light, my son'. The reformed punk and the ex-most threatening mutant embraced, and once again, Erik felt that powerful surge of pure joy run through his veins.  
  
*  
  
"It's- so- beautiful!" gasped Mystique between sobs as the team stood back to look at the new Brotherhood house.  
  
It was hard to believe that they were looking at the same building they had been sent to that morning. Whereas once they were standing in front of a rundown, old shack they were now observing what could be more aptly described as a palace. Not only did it look amazing but it had running water in hot and cold and perfect electricity. All bills would now be paid for by a certain Mr. Lehnsherr and it was agreed that the Brotherhood would live like kings.  
  
"And queens," reminded Rogue, thinking of Wanda.  
  
They were waiting for that metallic sphere to appear in the sky, bringing the boys to their lovely surprise. A long dispute was taking place over what should be shouted when they arrived, whether it was to be 'Surprise!', 'Welcome home!' or Pyro's rather strange choice of 'Happy Hanukkah!' (it was the middle of June).  
  
Suddenly, a long blue finger pointed up to the sky and Kurt let out an excited cry. Mystique clutched his arm, trembling as the travel sphere slowly descended on to the lawn.  
  
"Surp'- 'come home-'nnukah!" came their strange jumbled cry as the three boys and Erik climbed out of their means of travel.  
  
A string of expletives from the Brotherhood boys followed as they stared at their house in amazement. Toad actually looked close to fainting and grabbed onto his team-mates for dear life.  
  
"You.. Bastards!" cried Lance in ecstasy, pointing a shaky finger at them.  
  
"You think that's good, have a look indoors," grinned Gambit, whose girlfriend flashed an identical saccharine smile.  
  
The boys were lost for words as they saw their new kitchen, new walls, new carpets, new bathrooms and new furniture. They couldn't recognise this house from their old one. It was so much better, cleaner and 'shinier' as the Blob claimed.  
  
When they were sure that Mystique was not looking, Kurt and Rogue showed the boys a little feature they had installed. Down in the basement there was now a bar, some large plush sofas and a massive stereo. Kurt had even thoughtfully placed a neon flamingo on the wall as he believed that no bar was complete without one.  
  
"Well?" Mystique asked anxiously after placing a none-too-reluctant Todd on her lap. "Do you like it?"  
  
"Like it?" the amphibian replied with a rather lecherous smile. He wasn't quite sure whether she meant the house or her lap, but either way he was very much enjoying the view.  
  
"It's the best thing anyone's ever done for us," Fred muttered to his shoes, being a Blob of few words.  
  
"You guys rock!" added Lance, who had one arm around Pietro and the other around Rogue.  
  
Pietro made a small squeaking noise, and suddenly zipped off, leaving Lance rather confused. He appeared a second later with a small, hand-painted sign.  
  
"Can't believe we forgot this," he said, holding it up for all to see. The sign read 'Beware Of The Toad'.  
  
"For the door," he added as the Toad in question promptly burst into tears of joy.  
  
That night, it was not only Erik who was feeling the wonderful benefits of goodwill. His grand team of nine now knew that the secret to happiness was the joy of others and watching the three ex-delinquents marvel at their amazing new headquarters was enough to make even the coldest heart melt.  
  
"To happiness," exclaimed Erik as he raised his champagne glass. His glass was promptly met with twelve others and the room rang with cheers and shouts.  
  
"To happiness!"  
  
-  
  
-I've used the good old British version of 'Jingle Bells, Batman Smells' as I don't know the American one so just in case you're not familiar with it the lyrics are below.  
  
Jingle bells, Batman smells Robin flew away (person with name that rhymes with crude body part) lost his/her (crude body part) On the motorway!  
  
The chapter title comes from a half-forgotten song from my childhood entitled "Daddy's Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow", which, in my memory, is very repetitive and consists solely of those words.- 


	8. Of happy XMen

Erik took a deep breath as he stood on the doormat and waited for somebody to answer. He rather feared that this was going to prove to be the hardest yet of his missions. Not only was it going to be complicated, but it had been a little ill thought out and indeed, he had no idea what he was going to do or say once he was inside.  
  
His decision to apologise to the X-Men and show off his reformed self had been very spur of the moment. It had come to him only seconds before he found himself waiting at the door of the mansion. This was very different from his other 'projects' of late, where everything had been planned meticulously and quite frankly, he was beginning to feel extremely nervous.  
  
The rather new feeling of nerves was shocked out of him completely when the door was not opened, but blasted through with a beam of red light. No sooner had he recovered from the blow than he found himself impaled to the ground by six rugged spikes. This was not quite the warm welcome he had been hoping to receive.  
  
"Magneto," growled the one they call Cyclops, who was currently in his Wildly Stereotypical Superhero Mode.  
  
Confused, Erik searched for the evil Magneto before realising that the villain had actually once been a part of himself. He had been so happy lately that the 'Magneto' part of him had been pushed further and further away. Now he could hardly believe that the man in the helmet and cape had been himself, and not least because the red and purple had made such a horrid colour combination.  
  
"Hello, Cyclops," he said pleasantly. "And Evan, what a nice surprise."  
  
The boys in question responded by staring open mouthed at him.  
  
The redheaded girl appeared, whose name Erik could never remember. He seemed to recall that it was a particularly dull codename. She promptly started to screech for the professor, which Erik found rather odd. Wasn't the girl a telepath, and therefore able to communicate via the mind?  
  
"What do you want?" glared Evan, looking like a very annoyed porcupine. "Did Pietro send you here?"  
  
To Evan's disgust, his remark was met with a smile. Not a maniacal grin or a bitter smirk, but a genuine smile!  
  
Erik laughed softly to himself at the disgust with which Evan's pronunciation of his son's name was laced. The boys had a rivalry to rival Sabretooth and Wolverine's- only to look at the latter pair now you would never have known they were anything but the best of friends.  
  
The professor promptly arrived, flanked by Rogue, Kurt and the girl who walked through walls.  
  
"Oh dear, Evan," Xavier's eyes twinkled as he saw his friend pinned to the ground by spikes. "You've made an awful mess of Magneto's clothes."  
  
Although not the brightest fairy light on the tree, Evan could tell when something odd was up. First, Magneto arrived at the mansion. No, he didn't just hover through the window as usual but appeared at the door- like a normal person with manners might! He didn't seem his evil self, didn't fight back and then smiled of all things. Professor X didn't seem worried about it at all, no, smiled and laughed, and Rogue and Kurt found the whole spectacle hilarious! Something weird was definitely happening, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be a part of it.  
  
Now that the subject of Erik's clothes had been brought up by Xavier, it was easier to notice that they were a little odd for a man of his years. After the unfortunate incident of Pietro burning all his clothes, Erik had been content to borrow things from the fellow Acolytes. Today he was wearing one of Pietro's tops, which was more than a little snug on him; teamed with a pair of Sabretooth's kinky leather trousers.  
  
"Don't worry, professor!" cried Cyclops, who seemed to be ignorant of Xavier and Erik's matching smiles. "He can't hurt us now."  
  
Oh, couldn't he?  
  
More amused than angry, Erik made a point of levitating Rogue, who was wearing a fair share of silver jewellery.  
  
"Stand back!" Cyclops continued, aiming to blast him into submission.  
  
"Scott, no!" shouted the redhead and hid her face in her hands.  
  
"Actually, Scott," grinned Xavier, as Rogue and Kurt came close to hysterical laughter. "I wouldn't if I were you. 'Magneto' has had something of a change of heart. His intentions, if anything more than desiring a cup of tea, are good. Now kindly remove those spikes and follow me indoors. I believe Ororo has just put the kettle on."  
  
*  
  
Surprisingly, Erik found that the X-Men were almost as accepting as the Brotherhood when they heard his story. He was beginning to wonder if Magneto had ever been that evil to start with- perhaps, unknowingly, his good side had always shown through? Perhaps they all thought that underneath the costume was a man who was not adverse to dressing up as Santa Claus at yuletide and handing out gifts to all the disadvantaged little children.  
  
The fact that Mystique was now visiting the institute regularly and checking that they had all washed behind their ears may also have made the news that Magneto had turned good a bit more believable. And if that failed to convince them that good was the new bad, Sabretooth and Wolverine were currently cooing over a small furry object known as Dolly.  
  
"Man, they used to want to rip each other apart," muttered Evan, seemingly disappointed by the odd couple's antics. His frown increased when Wolverine appeared, ruffling his hair affectionately.  
  
"Just goes to show, porcupine, rivals can be damn good friends! Ain't that right, Vic?"  
  
The beclawed one then slung a casual arm around Sabretooth's shoulders. Evan wasn't sure, but he suspected that he might vomit all over the pair of them.  
  
Thus began Erik's first X-Men related project- the arduous task of breaking the rivalry between Evan and Pietro. He had thought that now Pietro was a reformed boy, he might accept the idea of shaking Evan's hand and calling it a day with maturity, but it was not to be. Pietro had scowled and stomped all the way to the Xavier Institute, muttering about a 'Spyke-Boy' under his breath and exactly what he planned to do with him. From what Erik could decipher from the boy's rapid rantings, Pietro was less likely to condone and more likely to castrate the spiky one. Indeed, the only likely way his son was going to offer the olive branch was if it was placed in a rather intimate orifice of Evan's.  
  
Erik thought he might have been a little unfair in the way Pietro and Evan were to meet. They would be nothing short of forced to apologise and forgive each other under the watchful eyes of a father and an aunt. Erik had found Storm, or Ororo as he now knew her, to be an extremely good sport. She had been the one who suggested in the first place that they be present, if not to make sure that the boys made their peace then to at least ensure they didn't kill each other.  
  
The moment they entered they entered the room, Erik set a firm grip on Pietro's shoulders. Oh yes, the boy was quick but not quite enough for the almighty Erik Lehnsherr! Ororo, who had put her nephew under similar restraint, gave Erik a sly grin.  
  
"Well now," she said with a sweet smile as the boys glared and bared their teeth at each other. Erik was almost sure Evan was growling. "I think the two of you have something to say to each other."  
  
"Damn right I do," muttered Pietro, who was then sharply kicked in the ankle by the benevolent Erik.  
  
"Sabretooth and Wolverine can do it," said Erik, adopting his saintly persona once more. For good measure, he threw in a sorrowful little shake of the head. "Can you two boys not swallow your pride and put aside your differences?"  
  
At that moment, both Evan and Pietro realised that they had no choice. There they were, held down and watched intently by two determined and extremely powerful people. They would not leave the room without saying those fateful words to each other, the words which could have been said years ago but never were.  
  
Evan was first to say it. Whether he meant it or not was a different story altogether, but his aunt's nails were beginning to dig into his shoulders and cause large amounts of discomfort. He was also finding it hard to bear Erik's unblinking stare- it somehow managed to be intimidating, forceful and caring at the same time.  
  
"Sorry, Pietro," he muttered, staring at the ground.  
  
"There, you see?" Erik said softly to his son. "Are you man enough to do the same thing, Pietro?"  
  
Erik had been extremely crafty in choosing those words. He knew that Pietro was touchy about such things, given the boy's somewhat effeminate appearance. There was nothing Pietro hated more than being called a girl and there were very little things he wouldn't do to prove himself as a man. Erik smiled as he watched his son puff himself up, giving his shoulder an encouraging squeeze.  
  
"S. Sorry, Evan," Pietro mumbled, also seeming very interested in the carpet.  
  
A very awkward silence followed. Being no longer able to stand the stares of his aunt and the former super villain, Evan cleared his throat.  
  
"So, Pietro, wanna go shoot some baskets?"  
  
Pietro nodded.  
  
"Anything to get away from these freaks."  
  
And with that, the speed demon and the porcupine left the room together. It hadn't been quite as successful as Erik had hoped, but it was a start and something told him that before long the boys would be the best of friends.  
  
"It is true then," grinned Ororo as she sat down at the piano. "You are quite the miracle worker."  
  
"Can you play?" Erik asked, signalling to the piano.  
  
She nodded, looking wistful as her eyes clouded over.  
  
"Whatever's the matter?" enquired Erik, who was beginning to find the lady quite enchanting.  
  
"It is. No, it's a silly thing," she laughed slightly. "I have this dream, you see. You will laugh at me if I tell you!"  
  
"Laugh?" Erik raised an eyebrow and grinned at her in a winsome 'Try Me' kind of way.  
  
The corners of her mouth curled upwards and she played a long, bluesy tune as she spoke.  
  
"Music is so important to me, but saving the world has got to come first. That, and Evan. He's my priority. But this dream I have- I keep wanting it more and more. Please don't laugh at me," she paused and ran her fingers over the keys, letting them skim over with all the grace of a stone on water. "I have always wanted to lead a jazz band."  
  
Erik did not laugh, but couldn't help smiling at her. He didn't find her dream preposterous in the slightest, in fact he found it rather exciting.  
  
"But it's your dream," he cried, leaning on the piano. "You ought to follow it!"  
  
"Oh, I couldn't," she murmured, blushing at the thought of it.  
  
"But you must! Ororo, you are a marvellous musician and dare I say it, a very alluring lady. You wouldn't let that go to waste, surely?"  
  
She blushed even more, but began to smile again.  
  
"Now," Erik continued. "I have a friend who plays the trombone and would adore to be in a band. That's two musicians already. We'll place an ad in a club- no, I shall take you out to the best jazz club in town tonight and we'll sort it out there. If, that is, you'll let me?"  
  
How could she say no?  
  
*  
  
Only minutes after his two successes of the day, Erik found himself confronted by a very nervous looking Cyclops.  
  
"You- you help people, right?" he stuttered, staring at the reformed villain suspiciously.  
  
"I do my best," replied Erik, rather more smugly than he ought to.  
  
"Okay," muttered the boy, running his hands through his hair. "It's- well- it's- could you help me?"  
  
Erik nodded and gave the anxious mutant a reassuring pat on the back.  
  
"Well, I- I have this friend," started the boy. Erik grinned to himself. Anyone who started a sentence with 'I have this friend' was inevitably talking about themselves.  
  
"And- he's kinda really in love with this girl," he mumbled. Erik nodded, urging him to continue. "But she doesn't really know it. They're real good friends, see and he's worried he's going to spoil things by telling her but he wants her to know all the same. What should I- er, he do?"  
  
Erik sighed. One thing he wasn't very good at was giving advice on matters of the heart, considering his wife had ran away from him after only a few months of marriage.  
  
"He should.." Erik began, before a change in Cyclops' face caught his eye. The boy was now smiling in an extremely sickly manner and had his eyes been visible, they would have become larger and rather glazed over. The cause of that smile was evident. The red-haired telepath was walking past, looking at Cyclops in much the same way and suddenly, it all fit into place.  
  
Cyclops loved the redhead. She loved him. But neither of them knew it! And here Cyclops was, asking how to make a move on her. Erik found the whole thing quite adorable and vowed that he would help them to fall in love. He had played Cupid with Gambit before, and if he could have success with the insatiable LeBeau then getting Cyclops and the telepath together would be no problem at all.  
  
"You- er, he," Erik shared a knowing little grin with Cyclops. "He should definitely tell her because it is evident that she feels the same. He should just go for it because he really has nothing to lose. He should do it now, whilst the sun is setting and he should pick a few of those daisies over there for her. She'll like that."  
  
"Right," Cyclops said, growing more confident as a wide grin crossed his face. "Thanks, Mr Lehnsherr. You know, you really are a great guy!"  
  
Erik felt a swell of almost paternal pride as the boy began to walk away, suddenly stopping in his tracks.  
  
"Hey," he said. "You knew it was me and Jean all along, didn't you?"  
  
Erik nodded, a wide smile spreading across his face as Cyclops approached the redhead. Whilst he had once found young love completely nauseating, he was now almost weeping for joy. He could see them in deep conversation, the flowers clenched behind his back and then held out to her in a hopeful gesture. She smiled tearily and inhaled their scent and Erik felt anticipation building inside of him. 'Go on, my son!' he willed Cyclops. 'Go on!'  
  
And it happened. Slowly but surely, Cyclops' arm found its way around her waist and her hand closed around his and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they kissed. Erik actually jumped for joy, screaming silent encouragement. It was then that he realised he was not the only one watching the spectacle. In fact, most of the institute were witnessing it, all sharing the same grins and promptly erupting into applause.  
  
*  
  
Erik's night at the jazz club with Ororo had been a great success. She was enthralling, charming and beautiful. They drunk champagne and listened to the finest of sounds, before he urged Ororo up the piano herself. Then, it was announced that she was looking to start a band and she was forced to play one of her own pieces. The sound of her music and the way she played it held the audience in complete rapture. They all knew she'd be a star.  
  
That night, they managed to obtain a guitarist; a bass player; a clarinet player; a saxophonist; a bongo player and the most incredible deaf drummer, who could only 'feel' the music. Pyro already had a place in the band and was also present, trombone slung around his neck as usual.  
  
And so the Ororo Munroe Experience were formed. This success had been one of the most moving for Erik as he had helped Ororo to reach her dreams. He never seen anybody look so happy as she had- radiant, in fact. That night, he found that he had fallen for the weather goddess. It had been so long since he had felt the emotions of love and lust that he felt them twice as strong. He realised what he had really missed over his years of evil- the love of a good woman.  
  
Indeed, it seemed that he had found it in Ororo. She was more than grateful for what he had done for her and couldn't believe that anyone, especially one who had previously been so malevolent, could do something so lovely. She found him handsome and chivalrous and saw his age not as a bad thing but as a bonus. It made him that much more wiser and there was nothing in her opinion more appealing than a villain turned good. If someone had told her just days before that she would fall for Magneto, she would have told them they were crazy. But now, however, she saw that all she had ever been looking for was behind his mask.  
  
Erik thought he had done extremely well for his first day at the institute. A lifelong dream was reached, and three new relationships were formed. Evan and Pietro had seemed much more friendly with each other when he returned home and were even calling each other 'Van' and 'Tro' as opposed to 'Asshole' and 'Pansy'. Jean (he had finally learnt her name) and Cyclops were last seen on the roof watching the stars in the sickly sweet way young lovers do. And then there was his own budding romance with the beautiful Ororo..  
  
Something told him things would only get better. 


	9. Adoption for a day

Many, many thanks for your reviews as usual. They do make me smile.  
  
Ray (Berzerker) is in this chapter because I've grown fond of him. He has silly hair and his voice is quite sexy, don't you think? No?  
  
Oh yes.. and the green pants which landed on Pietro's head were a homage to Kurt's green boxers which he always lets ride above his trousers with such pride.. Long live the green pants!  
  
*  
  
Breakfast at the Xavier institute was always quite a grand event, or at least it was compared to breakfast at the Acolyte hideout. With the Acolytes, none of whom were particularly skilled in the kitchen, the best start to the day was a gritty cup of coffee and Pyro's specialty- a finely blackened piece of toast. With the X-Men however, everything was cooked to perfection with an extensive range of choices. So extensive, in fact, that there was not only Cornflakes but caviar and Chile Con Carne too.  
  
Erik was just settling down to his muesli and Greek yoghurt when the arrival of a student with a large sack of letters sent the young recruits into a frenzy. The teenagers quite forgot the maturity Charles Xavier had spent so much time and effort teaching them, instead choosing to stand on chairs; jump up and down and talk in one continuous babble.  
  
"Ray! Ray! Is there anything for me?"  
  
"Anything addressed to Summers, Ray?"  
  
"Hey! Who're the roses for, Ray?"  
  
Erik couldn't help but smile. In his time, he had seen some quite unruly young mutants, but these were nothing compared to the supposedly civilised X-Men.  
  
"Ray, is the pink one for-"  
  
The long-suffering Ray screeched for quiet. Like scolded animals, the teens shuffled back into their seats and hung their heads in shame. Spiking up his extraordinary fringe, Ray picked up the bag of letters and searched through it.  
  
"Postcard for you, Evan. Scott, that's a bill for something and a letter from the coast. Amara, want to explain these flowers?"  
  
As he spoke, he threw the items at their rightful owners. Erik found that he had to duck rather frequently, getting hit once on the head by a large box of peppermint creams. Ray continued to sort through the post.  
  
"Blah blah blah.. Rogue, Kurt, you've got a postcard from your mütti and she sends- ooh, look at that- eighteen kisses! Bobby- hey, don't freeze that. The ink's gonna run if you-"  
  
"Ray, is there, like, anything for me?"  
  
Erik looked up to see the girl who could walk through walls, who he now knew as Kitty, looking extremely dejected. It was easy to see why. Every other student had received at least one letter or gift, but she had nothing. Ray seemed to notice this too, as he put on a kindly face and searched the bag once more.  
  
"Hey, that might be- er, sorry, Kit. That one's for me. But this one may be- oh. Also for me." He caught her looking more forlorn and shared a guilty look with Erik. "But, er, maybe I missed something."  
  
Ray turned out the bag hopelessly, knowing that nothing would fall from it.  
  
"Sorry, Kitty," he shrugged. "I'm sure it'll come tomorrow. You know what mailmen are like!"  
  
Then the boy was gone. Erik watched him read his own letters for a while, unable to fathom his bizarre haircut. He soon grew tired of even trying and turned his attention back to the unhappy mutant girl. She seemed to notice him watching her straight away and rather than refrain, she began to talk incessantly.  
  
"It's, like, so unfair, you know? They can't have just forgotten about me, right? They, like, always write on a Thursday. What if they're like, sick or something and can't write- what if they don't want to write?"  
  
Erik blinked, trying to process her words. "I'm sure that's not the case, Kitty."  
  
"But maybe it is! What if they don't like, like me anymore?"  
  
"Like, like?" Erik wrinkled his nose in concentration. Was 'like, like' a new expression meaning 'to love', or had she just thrown in the word 'like' in her usual manner and simply wondered if her parents liked her anymore? Or, based on the fact that the word 'like' usually meant nothing other than a comma when she used it; was she really saying nothing at all?  
  
"This totally sucks!" she declared, stabbing at her fruit salad with a fork. "Even Mystique writes to her kids! It's not, like, that hard to pick up a pen, you know. They didn't even have to write anything special, you know, just "Dear Kitty, blah blah, love Mom and Dad!" That's all!"  
  
By this point, she had gained the attention of most of the people in the room. She blushed and mumbled that she was sorry before turning back to Erik. From what she had heard from the other students, he was a wonderful ear.  
  
"Sorry, Mr Lehnsherr, it's just, you know, I miss them. They were, like, always there for me." She sighed, and Erik gave her a sympathetic little smile. "I miss my daddy."  
  
Something in her last sentence moved Erik. Perhaps it was the realisation that he, himself was a daddy. Perhaps it was guilt, for not having been the best of daddies, particularly to Wanda. In fact, he had been a dreadful daddy to her and was still too scared to apologise for it.  
  
He knew he would do it soon enough. Now that he was an active father to Pietro, he wanted Wanda to be a part of the family too. Yet how did one go about saying sorry to somebody whose life one had wrecked? Not without full body armour and a wall of bodyguards, that much was certain.  
  
In Kitty's youthful face he saw the Wanda he would have liked to have today. An energetic girl who was almost never seen without a smile, somebody he could share a laugh with.  
  
Loath as he was to admit it, he wasn't content just having a son. He missed having a daughter.  
  
"Kitty, I'm going to suggest something very strange," he announced, turning back to her with a hopeful smile. "How do you feel about adopting each other for the day?"  
  
*  
  
Pietro could distinctly feel his eye twitching as he stared into the 'Beware Of The Toad' sign. He had not been blessed with his father's calmness or bravery. In fact, standing on that familiar doormat, he knew that he may be facing his last hour.  
  
Inspired by his father's massive change of heart, he had decided that it was time for him to do some good turns of his own. Unlike Erik, he was not starting quite so small. This was not making metallic mutants dance and nor was it cheering up your teenage-angst ridden son. This was, in his eyes, The Big One- a deed so good that it would change three lives for the better.  
  
It was just making it work that was the problem.  
  
"Eh, Piet, you gonna stare at me some mo', yo?"  
  
Pietro shook himself and a familiar stench reached his nostrils. Ah. Dear, sweet Todd. Even with two, new state-of-the-art bathrooms in the revamped Brotherhood house he didn't care to wash.  
  
"Come in, yo," the semi-Amphibian made a sweeping gesture and hopped in.  
  
Pietro followed him, immediately being accosted by a concerned Lance. He had told Lance of his plans before coming and the rock tumbler had thought him insane.  
  
"Pietro, you don't have to do this, man. Don't do this. Seriously, dude, she'll kill you!"  
  
"He's gonna talk to Wanda?" Fred asked from an adjacent room before joining them. Pietro almost died upon seeing him. Gone was the mohawk, replaced by a small and demure black quiff. Not only that, but Fred was wearing what appeared to be a kaftan and had a small, neat square of facial hair on his chin.  
  
"Oh, yeah," Fred nodded, noticing that Pietro was looking rather disturbed. "I had to change my image. It just wasn't.. deep enough."  
  
"Fred's really getting into his poetry," whispered Lance, giving him a grave nod.  
  
A silence followed, in which Fred thought deeply and philosophically about mankind. Pietro nervously twiddled his thumbs, feeling like he was on death- row and Lance bit his lip, wondering how hard it would be to scrape the remains off the speed demon off the new carpet afterwards.  
  
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a very familiar sound.  
  
"POOKIE!"  
  
The mating call of the Toad.  
  
Seconds later, Todd was blasted through the door and landed comfortably on Fred's stomach. Pietro noticed that his knuckles were now completely white. Wanda was obviously not having a good day.  
  
"She's in the garden, yo," Todd said weakly. Pietro nodded, standing with a rousing symphony in his head. This was His Moment.  
  
*  
  
Erik and Kitty sat by the lake, watching their paper boats amble on the water. They were just finishing a well earned ice cream that had followed a little tree climbing. Erik had found himself to be particularly skilled in tree climbing, but considering his ability to levitate this was no great surprise.  
  
Kitty picked a blade of grass and placed it between her hands. Then, to Erik, she did a most incredible thing. For, when she blew upon this mere blade of grass it made a sound! Erik had seen many great things in his life, but had never known that grass could make such a sound before.  
  
"Good lord," he said softly, accidentally dropping the remains of his ice cream on to Pyro's expensive trainers. "You must teach me how to do that!"  
  
Kitty smiled. "My daddy taught me!"  
  
Somewhere, Erik felt a pang of sadness. He had never taught his own children such things. Certainly, they were well informed on such matters as world domination but could they take a blade of grass and blow on it, making that unearthly sound? Could they take a piece of newspaper and make it into a jaunty hat before turning it round to reveal a boat, of all things?  
  
Teaching Magneto to blow a blade of grass should have been no hard task, but it was practically impossible. No matter how hard or soft he blew, the grass would not so much as squeak. This seemed to tickle Kitty somehow, and before long the pair of them were rolling with hysterical laughter.  
  
"Seriously, Kitty," he gasped, after one last valiant attempt. This time, the grass made a sound but it was such an unfortunate, crude sound that the laughter started again. "Am I.. A bad father?"  
  
"You were," she said, now making a daisy chain. "But you were, like, totally cool today. I think you're a great daddy."  
  
"Really?" he said, blushing as she crowned him with the finished daisy chain. "Thank you."  
  
And, in a way that only Kitty Pryde could get away with, she threw her arms around Erik's neck as if he were indeed her own father.  
  
*  
  
"Wanda- just- let me talk!" Pietro yelped as he zipped through various flying obstacles.  
  
"I don't want to talk!" she screamed, sounding much like the angry Pietro of old. Pietro ducked as the contents of the washing line flew his way and he was pelted with various undergarments.  
  
"Wanda, you're being very childish," Pietro sighed as he flung a pair of green boxer shorts off his head with as much dignity as he could muster.  
  
Of all things to say, this was the possibly the worst. He raised his eyes to the sky worriedly, waiting to see how she would smite him this time.  
  
Jerome, their biggest coy carp from the ornamental pond was now sailing through the air towards him at a very slow pace.  
  
"Wanda, not the fish!"  
  
She ignored him, Jerome coming ever closer.  
  
"Wanda, the fish doesn't deserve this."  
  
"No," she scowled. "You do!" And promptly, the fish landed heavily against Pietro's face with an almighty slap.  
  
"Oww, Wanda!" Pietro whined as he rubbed his face. "I was only trying to tell you that Dad changed. Why else would he decorate your house?"  
  
"It's another scheme," she muttered, with a glare that could cut adamantium.  
  
"I thought that too. But you must have seen how everybody's changed. Everybody's.. happy. Don't you want to be happy, Wandy?"  
  
"No," she growled, her scowl deepening. "And don't call me Wandy."  
  
"Don't believe you!" taunted Pietro. "Don't forget, we have Spooky Twin Connection. You're just too proud to show him that you've changed your mind."  
  
"Am not!"  
  
"Are too."  
  
As arguments like this do, this continued for a good ten minutes until Wanda was too tired to be livid anymore.  
  
"He abandoned me," she said, carrying Jerome back to the pond though not entirely sure he was alive. "He put me in an institution."  
  
Pietro nodded. There was no denying that their father had once been an Evil Bastard. He was just lucky enough to be able to separate Magneto from Erik.  
  
"Yeah, he abandoned me too once," Pietro said thoughtfully. "But if you met him just once- without trying to kill him or anything- I know you'd like him. Just.. think about giving him another chance, Wandy."  
  
Her eye twitched, and Pietro knew she was having an intense moral struggle.  
  
"Oh- oh, ALRIGHT!" she finally shouted, pointing a shaky finger at Pietro. "But this is not for you, or him, or anybody else! I don't care if he's Mother Teresa- just wait 'til I get my hands on him!"  
  
Not quite the reaction Pietro had been hoping for, but it was a start. His father could work miracles, after all. They'd be playing happy families in no time.  
  
"Wanda," he said softly, as they stared into the pond.  
  
"Yeah?" she whispered in an equally soft tone.  
  
"I just wanted to say that." he trailed off, not meeting her eyes.  
  
"Wanda, I think Jerome is dead." 


	10. More fluffy than der blaue Elfe

Just a little note to say that this might be the last update for a while, which is sad for me because I love writing this story..  
  
Thanks as usual to reviewers, I really enjoy your feedback. If you'd like to see something nice happen to any characters, just leave a wee suggestion and Magneto will see what he can do.  
  
Read, review and have a luvverly day!  
  
*  
  
The rooftop garden was an exquisite little place where flowers bloomed in the most unlikely setting under the deft fingers of Ororo Munroe. Its glass dome reflected the sun and made the garden forever warm and bright, scented with herbs and blossoms.  
  
"What's this one?" Erik asked, pointing to a potted shrub with spiky lavender flowers.  
  
"That is Lemon Mint," Ororo replied as she tended to her tomatoes. Erik raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Lemon Mint?"  
  
Ororo nodded, chuckling at his sceptical frown. She plucked a soft leaf off the shrub and crushed it between her fingers, offering him her hand. He inhaled the fragrance from the green pulp and then, ever the gentleman, kissed the back of her hand.  
  
"A delectable scent, my dear, green-fingered Ororo."  
  
She held out her face to be kissed and he by no means refrained. He could hardly believe his luck; how could such a beautiful, intelligent and talented woman possibly be his?  
  
"Do you think we ought to tell the boys?" she asked, handing him a trowel. They were planting bulbs for daffodils and tulips in preparation for the upcoming Spring.  
  
Erik fingered a bulb thoughtfully. The boys she spoke of were her nephew and his son. They had patched up their differences recently, but it was possible that news such as this could start another rift. Erik really didn't want to have to extract any more spikes from his son's delicate skin using only tweezers; Pietro always did make such a fuss.  
  
"Pietro is very sensitive," he said, thinking aloud as he heaped compost on top of the bulb.  
  
Ororo clicked her tongue pensively. "Evan can be rather overprotective. He hasn't liked anybody I've been out with as yet... But then, things have changed," she said, her face brightening. "You've changed, the boys have changed and I sometimes wonder if I haven't changed! Everybody is happy now."  
  
Somewhere along the way on his quest for happiness, Erik had discovered that somebody else's joy was your own. If this was so, then there was no reason for Pietro and Evan to be upset by their news. After all, he and Ororo were clearly thrilled with each other. This, they knew, was a serious relationship and they made no effort in concealing or denying it.  
  
"Then we'll tell them tonight," Erik declared with a quick squeeze of her hand. "And just in case, I shall bring my tweezers."  
  
*  
  
The institute was considerably empty that day. The students were all at school and the majority of the instructors were out on a mission. With Ororo now attending her midday book discussion group, Erik settled himself in the kitchen where he rehearsed the conversation they would be having later.  
  
'We don't want you to be alarmed by this news, but.' No, that made it sound ominous. And it was good news, surely?  
  
He tried the more direct approach. He knew that this would be better for Pietro's minute attention span.  
  
'Ororo and I are going out with each other.' Going out? Wasn't that what one did as teenagers? What would sound better- courting? Or was 'courting' too old fashioned for them to understand?  
  
His immensely long train of thought was broken by the rather distracting sound of rustling papers. The source of the noise was Mystique, who was currently glueing various bits and pieces into a large, lilac book.  
  
"They do grow up fast, don't they?" she sighed as she stuck down a picture of a furry, blue baby.  
  
Erik nodded. It seemed like only yesterday when he could seat Pietro on one knee and Wanda on the other. In a rather horribly sentimental frame of mind, he fished out his wallet and began searching through the photographs.  
  
It may seem surprising that, even in his most evil days, the great Magneto had pictures of babies at the back of his wallet. Admittedly, the photographs were ignored for fear of recalling unvillainous emotion but they were there nonetheless. What may seem even more surprising, however, is the fact that Erik was about to embark on a session of swapping baby pictures with the not entirely fearsome Mystique.  
  
The first photograph was of the twins on the day they were born. Being newborns, it was almost impossible to tell them apart for Erik. He was not quite enough of a doting father to think his children beautiful in their first few months of life; indeed, they were merely two very wrinkly, red bundles of dreadful noise and unfortunate bodily fluids.  
  
"Aaaaaaah," squealed Mystique as she caught sight of the picture, making a sound usually reserved for fluffy baby lambs. Erik supposed that you really had to be a woman to find such things visually appealing. He was handed a picture of a baby Rogue in return, who was surprisingly chubby and hairless. Apparently, the poor girl had grown no hair until she was two.  
  
"Wasn't she go-orgeous?" gushed the blue beauty. "Look at that face!"  
  
"Gosh, she looks quite a character," Erik replied blankly, which is what one generally says when handed a picture of an otherwise unattractive child.  
  
He pulled out a picture of a three year old Pietro, falling victim to the My-Child-Is-Cuter-Than-Yours superiority of the parent. There was no denying the surge of fatherly pride he felt as he recalled the way strangers would stop in the street and tell him what a beautiful boy Pietro was. Back then, he looked the very picture of innocence; all bottomless blue eyes and soft, snowy hair.  
  
"How adorable," Mystique remarked, secretly knowing that Kurt was far prettier than that. Any mutant would say so. How could they resist those giant yellow eyes peeking out from a veil of thick lashes, the baby-soft fur with that unmistakeably sweet scent?  
  
Erik took out the last picture with more care, pausing to examine it closely. It was taken one summer on a cliff-top overlooking an impossibly blue sea. A girl of six stood in the middle of the cliff, afraid to go any closer to the edge in case she fell off. Her immaculately cut black hair framed a familiar yet distant face and he noticed that her eyes were not quite focussed on the camera. She was wearing a simple red sundress and held a daisy between the thumb and index finger of her left hand.  
  
"That's Wanda," he said quietly, not feeling quite the same sense of fatherly pride for her. It was hard to place exactly what he felt, so he did not dabble in his emotions too long. He simply made a mental note to carry on striving to come up with an apology for her. He knew eventually that he would come up with something, something that would hopefully not enrage her and leave him short of a few limbs at the very least.  
  
Both Mystique and Erik tired of showing their children off soon after, and he left her with her scissors, glue and memories. As he closed the door, they were united by a final surge of parental smugness. On a count of three, they both informed the empty space around them of the obvious truth:  
  
"Mine were definitely cuter."  
  
*  
  
Evan pulled a long thread out of his red, stripy sock and absent mindedly placed it on Pietro's shoulder, who picked it up and began to tie knots in it.  
  
"What did we do lately?" Pietro asked for what seemed like the thousandth time. They had both been called to the sitting room by their guardians for a 'little talk' and took this to mean that they were either in dire trouble or about to receive a lecture.  
  
"Dunno, man. Maybe they think we're on drugs."  
  
Pietro shifted in his seat and began tapping his fingers on his knees until they became a blur. "Drugs? We're not on drugs. Evan, why would they think we're on drugs?"  
  
Evan sighed. "Well. Sex?"  
  
"No thank you, Evan," quipped Pietro. "Seriously though, why would they be giving us The Talk at this age, here, together?"  
  
"Dunno." Evan pulled another thread out of his sock, this time making a large hole in the toe.  
  
Pietro's face suddenly became the very picture of panic as an idea struck him. "You don't think that they think we're..?"  
  
Evan understood, and a comically repulsed expression crossed his face. "No way! Why would they think that? It's-"  
  
On seeing the doorknob rattle and the ominous figures of Erik and Ororo enter the room, Evan leapt out of his seat and held his hands up defensively.  
  
"I'm straight!" he squawked at his aunt, who replied with a raised eyebrow and a slow nod of the head.  
  
"Yeah, we're just friends," Pietro told Erik, who was biting back laughter. "Not friends-who-do-stuff friends but just friends."  
  
"Ah, good for you?" Ororo grinned and placed a fond hand over her nephew's. "That's not the reason we wanted to talk to the two of you."  
  
The blood drained from Evan's face before he quickly adjusted himself. "Oh. Oh, we knew that. Yeah.. Heh."  
  
"What's this about then?" Pietro asked, beginning to tire of the whole thing. "Are we in trouble or not?"  
  
"I never thought I'd say this," Ororo said with a particularly meaningful nod to Evan. "But no, you are not in trouble. Me and Erik simply had some news we thought you would like to hear."  
  
Erik smiled at his son, briefly remembering the photograph. "Ororo and I are, as you say, dating. Now," he began cautiously, watching the boys very closely for any reaction, "I know it's a rather significant age difference- I won't tell you how many years- but I'm sure you'll both agree we're quite well-suited."  
  
"Now, you mustn't feel rejected," Ororo said calmly. "You are family are nothing will ever change that."  
  
She continued to speak, but Erik's mind was wandering. Fond of her as he was, Erik couldn't help but feel that Ororo had taken her speech right out of The Good Parenting Guide. He half expected her to make them all join hands and engage in a little Circle Time.  
  
"Don't you agree, Erik?" she asked, catching him off his guard. He blinked in surprise and nodded in what he hoped was a sincere manner.  
  
Evan stared at them thoughtfully. His Auntie O and. and Magneto? Did they really have that much in common apart from white hair and a name which sounded like a breakfast cereal? 'Actually,' he thought to himself, starting to veer off the point, 'so does Pietro!'  
  
"What are you thinking about, Evan?" Ororo asked her nephew, who was frowning in deep thought.  
  
"Just how your names all end in O and you all have white hair," he shrugged. "I kinda feel left out, you know?"  
  
If Erik had been expecting any type of reaction at all, it hadn't been that. Did Evan even hear the news? Surely the fact that he was dating Auntie O was more of a revelation than a similarity in names and hair colour?  
  
"I don't mind you dating," Evan added and Erik breathed a sigh of relief. "He may be an old guy but he sure is cool."  
  
Satisfied with the feisty spike-shooter's reaction, they turned to Pietro who was staring at Ororo and his father incredulously.  
  
"Pietro?"  
  
"I can't believe this," Pietro said softly, shaking his head in disbelief. He dropped his head for a few seconds, then brought it back up with a devilish grin on his face. "You go, Dad- get in there!"  
  
Erik promptly burst out laughing. It had all been fine after all. He could now go back and put the tweezers away- there was not a spike in sight. Or had he spoken too soon?  
  
"You think my aunt's hot, man?" Evan asked, glaring daggers at Pietro. Ororo gave Erik a nervous look and sighing, his hand closed over the tweezers. Just in case.  
  
"Well- who wouldn't?" Pietro gave an infectious smirk. Evan tried to cross his arms and sulk, but the smirk was just too catchy. Besides, he was fond of the speed demon and his benevolent father. As they laughed, he found himself joining in and for once, he felt like he had a complete family.  
  
And almost as if they were the stick figures stepping out of the frames of The Good Parenting Guide, they came together in a spontaneous, lovely, emotionally-rewarding group hug. 


End file.
